How many people died during 9/11?
World Trade Center (1973–2001)
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, media reports suggested that tens of thousands might have been killed in the attacks, as over 50,000 people could be inside the World Trade Center, although the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) estimated that approximately 17,400 occupants were in the towers at the time of the attacks. Ultimately, 2,753 death certificates (excluding those for hijackers) were filed relating to the 9/11 attacks in New York City, including one filed for Felicia Dunn-Jones, who was added to the official death toll in ; Dunn-Jones died five months later from a lung condition linked to exposure to dust during the collapse of the World Trade Center. Three other victims were then added to the official death toll by the city medical examiner's office: Dr. Sneha Anne Philip, who was last seen the day before the attacks; Leon Heyward, a man who developed lymphoma and subsequently died in 2008 as a result of dust ingestion during the events following the attacks to the Twin Towers; and Jerry Borg, who died in December 2010 of pulmonary sarcoidosis determined in June 2011 to be the result of dust from the attacks. 2,192 civilians died in and around the World Trade Center, including 658 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald L.P. (an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center), 295 employees of Marsh & McLennan Companies (which was located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–101, the location of Flight 11's impact), and 175 employees of Aon Corporation. In addition to the civilian deaths, 343 New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighters were killed in the attacks, as well as 71 law enforcement officers, including 37 members of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) and 23 members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Ten years after the attacks, remains of only 1,629 victims had been identified. Of all the people who were still in the towers when they collapsed, only 20 were pulled out alive.
Mohammad Salman Hamdani
Mohammad Salman Hamdani () (December 28, 1977 – September 11, 2001) was a Pakistani American scientist, New York City Police Department cadet and Emergency Medical Technician who was killed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorism attacks on the World Trade Center, where he had gone to try to help. In the weeks following 9/11, reports surfaced that the missing Hamdani was being investigated for possible involvement with the perpetrators, but this suspicion proved to be false and he was subsequently hailed as a hero by the New York City mayor and police commissioner.
World Trade Center (2001–present)
These plans for improvement were never realized. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers in a coordinated act of terrorism. At 8:46 a.m. Eastern Time (ET), a team of five hijackers intentionally crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the northern facade of the North Tower. At 9:03 a.m. ET, a second team of five hijackers intentionally crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the southern facade of the South Tower. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed, after burning for 102 minutes. The attacks on the World Trade Center killed 2,753 people. The resulting collapse caused structural failure in many of the surrounding buildings as well, and the entire complex was soon destroyed.
Massoud Khalili
On September 9, 2001, Khalili interpreted for Massoud while he was interviewed by two Tunisians allegedly belonging to Al Qaeda posing as journalists. During the interview the suicide assassins detonated a bomb hidden in the video camera. Ahmad Shah Massoud died in a helicopter that was taking him and Khalili to hospital. Another aide of Massoud also died in the attack. The "Los Angeles Times" writes: "The explosion left Khalili blind in his right eye, deaf in his right ear and badly burned over much of his body, which was peppered by about 1,000 pieces of shrapnel. About 300 pieces are still in his left leg." 
The passport, which Massoud had told him to put into his shirt pocket, had stopped eight pieces of shrapnel from entering Khalili's heart and had thereby saved his life. 
About the death of Massoud he said:
Two days later the attacks of September 11, 2001, killed 3000 people on U.S. soil.
Posttraumatic stress disorder
The September 11 attacks took the lives of nearly 3,000 people, leaving 6,000 injured. First responders (police and firefighters), emergency medical services, sanitation workers, and volunteers were all involved in the recovery efforts. The prevalence of probable PTSD in these highly exposed populations was estimated across multiple studies utilizing in-person, telephone, and online interviews and questionnaires. Overall prevalence of PTSD was highest immediately following the attacks and decreased over time. However, disparities were found among the different types of recovery workers. The rate of probable PTSD for first responders was lowest directly after the attacks and increased from ranges of 4.8-7.8% to 7.4-16.5% between the 5-6 year follow-up and a later assessment. When comparing traditional responders to non-traditional responders (volunteers), the probable PTSD prevalence 2.5 years after the initial visit was greater in volunteers with estimates of 11.7% and 17.2% respectively. Volunteer participation in tasks atypical to the defined occupational role was a significant risk factor for PTSD. Other risk factors included exposure intensity, earlier start date, duration of time spent on site, and constant, negative reminders of the trauma. Additional research has been performed to understand the social consequences of the September 11 attacks. Alcohol consumption was assessed in a cohort of World Trade Center workers using the cut-annoyed-guilty-eye (CAGE) questionnaire for alcohol abuse. Almost 50% of World Trade Center workers who self-identified as alcohol users reported drinking more during the rescue efforts. Nearly a quarter of these individuals reported drinking more following the recovery. If determined to have probable PTSD status, the risk of developing an alcohol problem was double compared to those without psychological morbidity. Social disability was also studied in this cohort as a social consequence of the September 11 attacks. Defined by the disruption of family, work, and social life, the risk of developing social disability increased 17-fold when categorized as having probable PTSD.
The Terror Dream
"On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The total number of people killed because of these attacks was 2,753. The ratio of men to women killed during the attacks was 3:1. Faludi talks in depth about how mass amounts of volunteers arrived to help the victims rescued for the World Trade Center Towers. However, there were very few victims to help. 21,744 remains were found while only 291 bodies were found "intact".
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
Most of those who perished were civilians except for 344 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers who died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City, and another law enforcement officer who died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 55 military personnel who died at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and the 19 terrorists who died on board the four aircraft. Overall, 2,605 U.S. citizens, including 2,135 civilians, died in the attacks, while an additional 372 non-U.S. citizens (excluding the 19 perpetrators) also perished, which represented about 12% of the total. More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks, including the United Kingdom (67 deaths), the Dominican Republic (47 deaths), and India (41 deaths).
Cantor Fitzgerald
Cantor Fitzgerald's corporate headquarters and New York City office, on the 101st to the 105th floors of One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan (2 to 6 floors above the impact zone of a hijacked airliner), were destroyed during the September 11, 2001 attacks. At 8:46:46 a.m., six seconds after the tower was struck by the plane, a Goldman Sachs server issued an alert saying that its trading system had gone offline because it was unable to connect with the server. Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of its New York employees, 68% of its workforce, which was considerably more than any of the other World Trade Center tenants or the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, the New York City Fire Department, or the United States Department of Defense. Lutnick's brother was among those killed as the stairwells below them were destroyed or blocked by the plane crash. Lutnick vowed to keep the company alive, and the company was able to bring its trading markets back online within a week.
List of aircraft accidents and incidents by number of ground fatalities
There have been 200 aircraft crashes which are known to have resulted in ground fatalities. Of these, 62 have involved at least a dozen ground fatalities, 15 have involved at least 50 ground fatalities, and 3 have involved over 200 ground fatalities. The crashes of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 into the World Trade Center as part of the September 11 attacks are by far the deadliest incidents of this sort, with approximately 2,500 ground fatalities attributed to the two crashes and subsequent collapse of 1 WTC and 2 WTC. The deadliest accidental crash of an aircraft was the 1996 Air Africa crash, which resulted in the deaths of at least 225 people on the ground.
Antisemitic canard
Some recent conspiracy theories hold that Jews or Israel played a key role in carrying out the September 11, 2001 attacks. According to the paper published by the Anti-Defamation League, "anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have not been accepted in mainstream circles in the U.S.", but "this is not the case in the Arab and Muslim world." A claim that 4,000 Jewish employees skipped work at the WTC on 11 September has been widely reported and widely debunked. The number of Jews who died in the attacks – typically estimated at around 400 – tracks closely with the proportion of Jews living in the New York area. Five Israelis died in the attack.
Memorials and services for the September 11 attacks
The Flag of Honor and the Flag of Heroes were featured at the NYC 9/11 Memorial Field 5th Anniversary in Manhattan's Inwood Hill Park September 8–12, 2006. There 3,000 flags which represented those who died in the September 11 attacks. The flags were also featured on the msnbc Today Show and on ABC 13 News, Norfolk, VA.
Orio Palmer
The 9/11 Commission carefully analyzed the FDNY radio communications that day, and reported that the battalion chief (Palmer) was able to maintain radio communication that "worked well" with the senior chief in the lobby of the South Tower during the first fifteen minutes of his ascent. A message from a World Trade Center security official (Rick Rescorla) that the impact was on the 78th floor was relayed to Palmer, and he decided to try to take his team to that level. Beginning at 9:21 AM, Palmer was no longer able to reach the lobby command post, but his transmissions were recorded and analyzed later. He reached the 78th floor sky lobby, and his team not far behind him were able to free a group of civilians trapped in an elevator at 9:58 AM. Palmer radioed that the area was open to the 79th floor, "well into the impact zone", and reported "numerous civilian fatalities in the area". One minute later, at 9:59 AM, the South Tower collapsed, killing everyone still inside, including Palmer and NYFD Marshal Ronald Bucca.
Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945)
Estimates of the number of people killed in the bombing of Tokyo on 10 March differ. After the raid, 79,466 bodies were recovered and recorded. Many other bodies were not recovered, however, and the city's director of health estimated that 83,600 people were killed and another 40,918 wounded. The Tokyo fire department put the casualties at 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department believed that 124,711 people had been killed or wounded. After the war, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that 87,793 people had been killed and 40,918 injured. The Survey also stated that the majority of the casualties were women, children and elderly people. Frank wrote in 1999 that historians generally believe that there were between 90,000 and 100,000 fatalities, but some argue that the actual number was much higher. For instance, Edwin P. Hoyt stated in 1987 that 200,000 people had been killed and in 2009 Mark Selden wrote that the number of deaths may have been several times the estimate of 100,000 used by the Japanese and United States Governments. The large scale population movements out of and into Tokyo in the period before the raid, deaths of entire communities and destruction of records mean that it is not possible to know exactly how many died.
Executive Order 13769
"The New York Times" reported that "for an action aimed at terrorism, the order appeared to garner little or no support among experts and former officials of every political stripe with experience in the field." Experts on terrorism, such as Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina, Brian Michael Jenkins of the RAND Corporation, and Daniel Benjamin of Dartmouth College, formerly the State Department's top counterterrorism official. Benjamin said that the order was unlikely to reduce the terrorist threat, and "many experts believe the order's unintended consequences will make the threat worse." Kurzman noted that since the September 11 attacks in 2001, no one has been killed in the U.S. in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from or whose parents emigrated from the seven affected countries. Jenkins explained that of the 147 Jihadist plots and attacks since 9/11, 105 were perpetrated by U.S. citizens and 20 involved legal permanent residents. "In other words, 85 percent of the terrorists lived in the U.S. a long time before carrying out an attack—they were radicalized within the nation's borders." Jenkins went on to say: "Had this temporary prohibition been in effect since 9/11, how many lives would have been saved Not one." While Jenkins conceded that there were two individuals whose entry would have been prevented had the ban been in place since 9/11, both were in the country for years prior to engaging in terrorist related activities. According to Jenkins, the "... failure to identify these individuals before they entered the United States is not a flaw in the vetting process; it is our inability to predict human behavior years into the future."
Suicide attack
The September 11, 2001 attacks, orchestrated by al-Qaeda, has been called "the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which thrust the United States into World War II". They involved the hijacking of four large passenger jet airliners because their long transcontinental flight plans meant they carried more fuel, allowing a bigger explosion on impact (unlike earlier airline hijackings, the primary focus was the planes, not the passengers). Two planes were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying both 110 story skyscrapers within less than two hours, and a third was flown into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, causing severe damage to the west side of the building. These attacks resulted in the deaths of 221 people (including the 15 hijackers) on board the three planes as well as 2,731 more in and around the targeted buildings. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after a revolt by the plane's passengers, killing all 44 people (including the four hijackers) on board. In total, the attacks killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 others. The U.S. stock market closed for four trading days after the attacks (the first time it had an unscheduled closing since the Great Depression). Nine days after the attack, U.S. President George W. Bush called for a "War on Terror" and shortly thereafter launched the War in Afghanistan to find and capture Osama bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaeda organization that mounted the 9/11 attacks.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi and foreign insurgents carried out waves of suicide bombings. More attacks have been carried out in Iraq (1938 as of mid-2015) than in any other country.
9/11 Tribute Museum
Through walking tours, exhibitions and programs, the 9/11 Tribute Museum connects visitors with people who directly experienced the events of the February 26, 1993 bombing and September 11, 2001 attacks. The Tribute Museum has hosted more than four million visitors from all over the world.
102 Minutes That Changed America
According to this film, most of the archival footage was in possession of the U.S. government but was not released to History until years after 9/11.
The documentary film attracted 5.2 million viewers.
The program aired on Channel 4 in the UK, France 3 in France, History Channel in Brazil on 7 September 2009, SBS6, in the Netherlands on 9 September 2009 and on ZDF in 2009 and 2010. A&E Television Networks, parent company of History, aired it across all of their cable networks on September 11, 2011, at 8:46 a.m. EDT, the exact time American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into 1 World Trade Center ten years earlier.
Reactions to the September 11 attacks
In 2008, John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed published the findings of a six-year effort to poll and interview tens of thousands of Muslims in more than 35 countries with Muslim majorities or substantial minorities about reactions to the September 11 attacks: 23.1 percent of respondents said the attacks were in some way justified, and 7 percent viewed them as "completely justified." According to Pew Research, the majority of Muslims do not believe the official 9/11 story.A group of Palestinians were filmed celebrating in the street after hearing the local news reports of attacks on the World Trade Center and the deaths of thousands of Americans. Fox News reported that in Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, revelers fired weapons in the air, with similar celebratory gunfire heard at the Rashidiyeh camp near the southern city of Tyre as well. Yasser Arafat and nearly all the leaders of Palestinian National Authority (PNA) condemned the attacks and attempted to censure and discredit broadcasts and other Palestinian news reports justifying the attacks in America, with many newspapers, magazines, websites and wire services running photographs of Palestinian public celebrations. The PNA claimed such celebrations were not representative of the sentiments of the Palestinian people, and the Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the PNA would not allow "a few kids" to "smear the real face of the Palestinians". In an attempt to quash further reporting, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Arafat's Cabinet secretary, said the Palestinian Authority could not "guarantee the life" of an Associated Press (AP) cameraman if footage he filmed of post-9/11 celebrations in Nablus was broadcast. Rahman's statement prompted a formal protest from the AP bureau chief, Dan Perry. Palestinian Authority has muzzled coverage of Palestinian celebrations' (MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE)'Israel to AP: Release film of Palestinian celebrations' (Jerusalem Post/The Associated Press)'Bin-Laden Poster Seen at Gaza Rally' (The Associated Press).
Aircraft hijacking
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda Islamic extremists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77, and United Airlines Flight 93 and crashed them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the southwestern side of the Pentagon, and Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania (after passengers acted to stop the hijackers; its intended target was either the White House or the U.S. Capitol) in a terrorist attack. All in all, 2,996 people perished and more than 6,000 others were injured in the attacks. This casualty toll makes the hijackings the most fatal in history.
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
It was reported in 2018 that at least 15 FBI agents had died from cancer due to their roles in the aftermath and investigation of the attack. Further, a medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program at Mount Sinai Hospital reported in 2018 that out of the approximately 10,000 first responders and others who were at Ground Zero and have developed cancer as a result, more than 2,000 have died due to 9/11 related illnesses. The Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York also reported over 170 deaths of firefighters due to 9/11-related illnesses, and that roughly 1 in 8 firefighters who were at Ground Zero have developed cancer.
World Trade Center Health Program
On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists associated with the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets in a series of suicide attacks on the United States, killing 2,996 people and injuring more than 6,000 others. Hijackers flew planes into two main towers of the World Trade Center, resulting in the collapse of three buildings of the World Trade Center complex, and the Pentagon, resulting in the partial destruction of the western side in the building. The resulting dust cloud due to the collapse of the World Trade Center covered Manhattan for days and contained thousands of tons of toxic debris, including asbestos and other known carcinogens. Another hijacked plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania following an attempt by the passengers to retake control of the plane. No one in the airliners survived.
As of 2011, approximately 18,000 people have received medical treatment for illnesses related to toxic dust from the World Trade Center site. A study of rescue workers released in April 2010 found that all those studied had impaired lung functions, and that 30–40% were reporting little or no improvement in persistent symptoms that started within the first year of the attack. In 2011 a major research study showed significant long term medical and psychological effects among first responders to the World Trade Center site. These effects include elevated levels of asthma, sinusitis, Gastroesophageal reflux disease and posttraumatic stress disorder.
9/11 (2002 film)
9/11 is a 2002 French-American documentary film about the September 11 attacks in New York City, in which two planes were flown into the buildings of the World Trade Center, resulting in their destruction and the deaths of more than 3,000 people. The film is from the point of view of the New York City Fire Department. The film was directed by Jules and Gédéon Naudet, and FDNY firefighter James Hanlon, and produced by Susan Zirinsky of CBS News.
Right-wing terrorism
As of December 2018, the New America Foundation placed the number killed in terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11 as follows: 104 killed in jihadist terrorist attacks, 86 killed in far-right attacks, 8 killed in black separatist/nationalist/supremacist attacks, and 8 killed in ideological misogyny/"incel" ideology attacks. The politically conservative Daily Caller News Foundation using data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), found 92% of all "ideologically motivated homicide incidents" committed in the United States from 2007 to 2016 were motivated by right-wing extremism or white supremacism. According to the Government Accountability Office of the United States, 73% of violent extremist incidents that resulted in deaths since September 12, 2001 were caused by right-wing extremist groups.
History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 affected American perspectives on many issues, including immigration. A total of 20 foreign terrorists were involved, 19 of whom took part in the attacks that caused the deaths of 2,977 victims, most of them civilians. The terrorists had entered the United States on tourist or student visas. Four of them, however, had violated the terms of their visas. The attack exposed long-standing weaknesses in the U.S. immigration system that included failures in the areas of visa processing, internal enforcement, and information sharing.
9/11 conspiracy theories
The number of Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between 270 and 400. The lower figure tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area and partial surveys of the victims' listed religion. The U.S. State Department has published a partial list of 76 in response to claims that fewer Jews/Israelis died in the WTC attacks than should have been present at the time. Five Israeli citizens died in the attack.
King of Prussia Volunteer Fire Company 9/11 Memorial
The King of Prussia Volunteer Fire Company 9/11 Memorial is a memorial in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania that honors the lives lost in the September 11 attacks in 2001. The memorial is located adjacent to the King of Prussia Volunteer Fire Company station on Allendale Road across from the King of Prussia mall. The 9/11 Memorial consists of a monument, a gazebo, a patio, and an entrance path and stairs that commemorates the attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon along with the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. Among the features of the memorial are two steel beams that came from the actual World Trade Center. The memorial was dedicated on the tenth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011.
Trials related to the September 11 attacks
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as well as Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash have reportedly been charged with the murder of almost 3000 people, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism and plane hijacking; as well as attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury and destruction of property in violation of the law of war. The charges against them list 169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events".
The charges include 2,973 individual counts of murder—one for each person killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Communication during the September 11 attacks
After each of the hijacked aircraft struck the World Trade Center, people inside the towers made calls to family and loved ones; for the victims, this was their last communication. Other callers directed their pleas for help to 9-1-1. Over nine hours of the 9-1-1 calls were eventually released after petitioning by "The New York Times" and families of the WTC victims. In 2001, U.S. cell phones did not yet have texting or photography capabilities that came by the mid-2000s.
One World Trade Center
Together with a simultaneous attack on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a failed plane hijacking that resulted in a plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people (2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and the 19 hijackers). More than 90% of the workers and visitors who died in the towers had been at or above the points of impact. In the North Tower, 1,355 people at or above the point of impact were trapped, and died of smoke inhalation, fell, jumped from the tower to escape the smoke and flames, or were killed when the building eventually collapsed. One stairwell in the South Tower, Stairwell A, somehow avoided complete destruction, unlike the rest of the building. When Flight 11 hit, all three staircases in the North Tower above the impact zone were destroyed, thus making it impossible for anyone above the impact zone to escape. 107 people below the point of impact also died.
World Trade Center (1973–2001)
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the North and South Towers within minutes of each other; two hours later, both towers collapsed. The attacks killed 2,606 people in and within the vicinity of the towers, as well as all 157 on board the two aircraft. Falling debris from the towers, combined with fires that the debris initiated in several surrounding buildings, led to the partial or complete collapse of all the buildings in the complex and caused catastrophic damage to ten other large structures in the surrounding area.
September 11 attacks
In the South Tower, one stairwell, Stairwell A, was left intact after Flight 175 hit, allowing 14 people located on the floors of impact (including one man who saw the plane coming at him) and four more from the floors above to escape. New York City 9-1-1 operators who received calls from people inside the tower were not well informed of the situation as it rapidly unfolded and as a result, told callers not to descend the tower on their own. In total 630 people died in that tower, fewer than half the number killed in the North Tower. Casualties in the South Tower were significantly reduced because some occupants decided to start evacuating as soon as the North Tower was struck. The failure to fully evacuate the South Tower after the first jet crash into the North Tower was described by "USA Today" as "one of the day's great tragedies".
At least 200 people fell or jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as exemplified in the photograph "The Falling Man"), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below. Some occupants of each tower above the point of impact made their way toward the roof in the hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and the combination of roof equipment, thick smoke, and intense heat prevented helicopters from approaching.
A total of 411 emergency workers died as they tried to rescue people and fight fires. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) lost 343 firefighters, including a chaplain and two paramedics. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) lost 23 officers. The Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) lost 37 officers. Eight emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics from private emergency medical services units were killed.
9/11 conspiracy theories
Since the attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have been put forward in Web sites, books, and films. Many groups and individuals advocating 9/11 conspiracy theories identify as part of the 9/11 Truth movement. Within six hours of the attack, a suggestion appeared on an Internet chat room suggesting that the collapse of the towers looked like an act of controlled demolition. "If, in a few days, not one official has mentioned anything about the controlled demolition part," the author wrote, "I think we have a REALLY serious problem." The first theories that emerged focused primarily on various perceived anomalies in the publicly available evidence, and proponents later developed more specific theories about an alleged plot. One false allegation that was widely circulated by e-mail and on the Web is that not a single Jew had been killed in the attack and that therefore the attacks must have been the work of the Mossad, not Islamic terrorists. Similar e-mail narratives claimed that all Arab taxi drivers were absent in downtown Manhattan that morning.
Terrorism Risk Insurance Act
Before the September 11 attacks, business insurers generally neither charged for nor specifically excluded terrorism coverage. The scope of the 9/11 attacks and the resulting $40 billion estimated insured loss changed perceptions dramatically. It was the worst terrorist attack on record for both property and fatalities and the worst international attack on American soil since the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, as nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
9/11 Truth movement
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, different interpretations of the events that questioned the account given by the U.S. government were published. Among others, Michael Ruppert and Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker, published criticisms or pointed out purported anomalies of the accepted account of the attacks. French author Jean-Charles Brisard and German authors Mathias Bröckers and Andreas von Bülow published books critical of media reporting and advancing the controlled demolition thesis of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. In September 2002, the first "Bush Did It!" rallies and marches were held in San Francisco and Oakland, California organized by The All People's Coalition.
In October 2004, the organization 9/11 Truth released a statement, signed by nearly 200 people, including many relatives of people who perished on September 11, 2001, that calls for an investigation into the attacks. It also asserted that unanswered questions would suggest that people within the administration of President George W. Bush may have deliberately allowed the attacks to happen. Actor Edward Asner, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former assistant secretary of housing Catherine Austin Fitts, author Richard Heinberg, Enver Masud, founder of The Wisdom Fund, professors Richard Falk of the University of California, Mark Crispin Miller of New York University, Douglas Sturm of Bucknell University, Burns H. Weston of the University of Iowa College of Law and others signed the statement. In 2009, Van Jones, a former advisor to President Obama, said he hadn't fully reviewed the statement before he signed and that the petition did not reflect his views "now or ever."
Mystery of the Urinal Deuce
Cartman researches 9/11 online, and delivers a presentation to his class where he claims the true culprit behind 9/11 was Kyle. Despite the absurdity of Cartman's claims, he nonetheless convinces everyone that Kyle is guilty. Kyle enlists Stan's help, and they leave South Park to find an organization that can prove Kyle's innocence. The group they find, however, believes that the United States government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. A SWAT team attacks and takes Kyle, Stan, and the leader of the conspiracy organization to the White House where U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, reveal that the government "really is" behind 9/11. Bush murders the conspiracy leader and decides to kill Stan and Kyle as well, but they flee.
New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center resulted in the loss of 2,606 lives, including 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers. At the time, families received a $10,000 death benefit from the charity. Three hundred and fifty families first-responder families now represented an immediate need for $4 million, but in the weeks that followed, this need was met and exceeded. In the months following the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, the fund was able to give over $117 million to its beneficiaries.
Timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks
9:37:46: Flight 77 crashes into the western side of the Pentagon at 530 mph (853 km/h, 237 m/s, or 460 knots) and starts a violent fire. The section of the Pentagon hit consists mainly of newly renovated, unoccupied offices. All 64 people on board are killed, as are 125 Pentagon personnel.
American Airlines Flight 11
The aircraft crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 08:46:40 local time. Countless people in the streets of New York City witnessed the strike, but few video recordings captured the moment. Documentary film maker Jules Naudet captured the only known footage of the initial impact from start to finish. Before the hijacking was confirmed, news agencies began to report on the incident and speculated that the crash had been an accident. The impact and subsequent fire caused the North Tower to collapse 102 minutes after the crash, resulting in hundreds of additional casualties. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers recovered and identified dozens of remains from Flight 11 victims, but many body fragments could not be identified.
Jim Jones
Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around the settlement's main pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the September 11 attacks. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the suicide in progress.
Airport racial profiling in the United States
In the weeks following September 11, 2001, federal, state and local law enforcement officials investigated those responsible for the September 11 attacks during which nearly 3,000 people died. They assessed the United States's vulnerability to future acts of terrorism. Investigations showed the suspects of the crime to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Inside 9/11
The third part covers the post-9/11 events leading up to the killing of Osama bin Laden. It begins with the raid of bin Laden's compound, and then explores several related terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Bali Bombings, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings, the assassination of Nick Berg, 7/7, 2008 Mumbai Attacks, and the Fort Hood Shootings. It ends with the death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It explores the life of Anwar al-Awlaki and his involvement in 9/11. Al-Awlaki was killed on September 30, 2011 in a drone strike.
Aviation accidents and incidents
2,996: The deadliest aviation-related disaster of any kind, considering fatalities on both the aircraft and the ground, was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. On that morning four aircraft traveling on transcontinental flights from East Coast airports to California were hijacked after takeoff, and used in four separate attacks against major American landmarks. American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally crashed into the North and South Towers respectively of the World Trade Center, destroying both buildings in less than two hours. The World Trade Center crashes killed 2,753, the vast majority of fatalities being occupants of the World Trade Center towers or emergency personnel responding to the disaster. In addition, 184 were killed by American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into The Pentagon (causing severe damage and partial destruction to the building's west side). 40 passengers were also killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a Somerset County Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back and prevented the hijackers from reaching their designated target. This brought the total number of casualties of the September 11 attacks to 2,996 (including the 19 terrorist hijackers). As deliberate terrorist acts, the 9/11 crashes were not classified as accidents, but as mass murder-suicide; these events were subsequently treated by the United States and the member nations of NATO as an act of war and terrorism.
The Pentagon
On September 11, 2001, the 60th anniversary of the Pentagon's groundbreaking, a team of five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, "en route" from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed the Boeing 757 airliner into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. All 59 civilians and the 5 terrorists on the airliner were killed, as were 70 civilians and 55 military personnel who were in the building. The impact of the plane severely damaged the outer ring of one wing of the building and caused its partial collapse. At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and many offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore, the area hit, on the side of the Heliport facade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing, had nearly been completed.
September 11 attacks
At 8:46 am, five hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the northern façade of the World Trade Center's North Tower (1 WTC). At 9:03 am, another five hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the southern façade of the South Tower (2 WTC). Five hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 am. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh, at 10:03 a.m. after the passengers fought the four hijackers. Flight 93's target is believed to have been either the Capitol or the White House. Flight 93's cockpit voice recorder revealed crew and passengers tried to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that Flights 11, 77, and 175 had been crashed into buildings that morning. Once it became evident that the passengers might gain control, the hijackers rolled the plane and intentionally crashed it. 
Some passengers and crew members who called from the aircraft using the cabin airphone service and mobile phones provided details: several hijackers were aboard each plane; they used mace, tear gas, or pepper spray to overcome attendants; and some people aboard had been stabbed. Reports indicated hijackers stabbed and killed pilots, flight attendants, and one or more passengers. According to the 9/11 Commission's final report, the hijackers had recently purchased multi-function hand tools and assorted Leatherman-type utility knives with locking blades, which were not forbidden to passengers at the time, but were not found among the possessions left behind by the hijackers. A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 said the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers said he thought the bombs were fake. The FBI found no traces of explosives at the crash sites, and the 9/11 Commission concluded that the bombs were probably fake.
Geri Lynch Tomich
The first practice of the newly formed Synchroettes was scheduled on September 11, 2001, the day when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City, killing nearly 3,000 people. In order to honor the 9/11 victims Synchroettes has added the U.S. flag to all team attires.
September 11 National Day of Service
According to the nonprofit MyGoodDeed, which founded the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance ("9/11 Day") in 2002, the goal of "9/11 Day" is "to keep alive the spirit of unity and compassion that arose in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks in tribute to the individuals lost and injured in the attacks, and the many who rose in service in response." The idea of making September 11 an annual day of service was first conceived in the winter of 2001 by David Paine, a former marketing executive from New York City. In the Spring of 2002 David was joined by his friend Jay Winuk, who had lost his brother Glenn Winuk in the attacks at the World Trade Center, and together they formed the nonprofit group called One Day's Pay. In 2007, the name of the organization was officially changed to MyGoodDeed. In 2009, MyGoodDeed successfully led an effort to designate September 11 under federal law as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, which occurred as part of passage of the bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act by the United States Congress, and later, by an amendment to the Patriot Day Presidential Proclamation by President Barack Obama, which formally recognized and established September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorized the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency, to assist the 9/11 community in building awareness of and support for "9/11 Day" through its national service programs. In 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, MyGoodDeed, CNCS and the Points of Light Institute/HandsOn Network joined together to organize the largest day of charitable service in U.S. history, with more than 32 million Americans participating, according to research conducted by Horizon Consumer Science on behalf of MyGoodDeed. Today, 9/11 Day continues to engage nearly 30 million Americans annually in various forms of charitable service, including volunteering, donations to charities, and simple good deeds.
List of journalists killed in the United States
The only professional, working journalist to die while covering the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City was photojournalist Bill Biggart, who was killed by falling debris as he was taking photographs. However, the International Federation of Journalists, which also counts media workers, said that six other media workers and a journalist who were not working at the time died in the attacks. Among those media workers listed as killed were six broadcast TV engineers, who worked inside a tower, and another professional photojournalist, who was a passenger on the first plane that was flown into the WTC.
Rockaway, Queens
Almost exactly two months after 9/11, on November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor, killing 265 people: 260 aboard the aircraft and five on the ground. Many of the passengers on the plane were from the Dominican community in Washington Heights. A temporary memorial was developed at the actual site of the disaster, on Newport Avenue. But after consultation with the families in the Belle Harbor and Washington Heights communities, a public memorial was erected at the south end of Beach 116th Street, a major shopping district and transportation hub in the area. Ceremonies commemorating the disaster are held at the memorial every November 12, including a reading of the names of all of those killed in the crash. In 2001, a resident told "The Guardian": "It's impossible to understand unless you live here ... Father Michael Geraghty, a priest quoted in the same article, said that it was common for people to live in the houses that their parents lived in and that many families lived in the same houses for generations. The neighborhood suffered heavy losses from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." The impact of the 9/11 attacks and Flight 587 on the community was the subject of the book "Braving the Waves: Rockaway Rises, and Rises Again" by Kevin Boyle. The book contained many personal accounts of Rockaway residents and is interspersed with descriptions of other disasters in the Rockaways.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Fire and Rescue Department
On September 11, 2001, a team of five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, en route from Dulles International to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed it into The Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. All 64 people on the airliner were killed as were 125 people who were in the building. The impact of the plane severely damaged the structure of the building and caused its partial collapse. The MWAA Fire & Rescue Department units from Fire Station 301 were among the first units on scene at the Pentagon, and staff & equipment from both airports operated at the incident scene for several days past the initial incident operations.
American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda members on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. Mohamed Atta deliberately crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 92 people aboard and an unknown number in the building's impact zone. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-223ER, registration was flying American Airlines' daily scheduled morning transcontinental service from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles.
History of the United States (1991–2008)
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks, killing nearly 3,000 and injuring over 6,000 people. Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks. President Bush ordered all flights grounded and U.S. airspace remained closed for the rest of the week. An emergency bailout package for the airline industry was passed, and stocks fell dramatically when markets re-opened the following week. In response to the attacks, the Bush administration and Congress passed the controversial USA PATRIOT Act, aimed at enhancing security, and established the Department of Homeland Security, a mass consolidation of many federal agencies charged with investigation, intelligence, and emergency management. A new Terrorist Finance Tracking Program monitored the movements of terrorists' financial resources but was discontinued after being revealed by "The New York Times". Telecommunication usage by known and suspected terrorists was studied through the NSA electronic surveillance program. On October 7, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan as part of a global War on Terrorism, aimed at rooting out al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations.
September 11 attacks
The 9/11 attacks had immediate effects on the American people. Police and rescue workers from around the country took a leave of absence from their jobs and traveled to New York City to help recover bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers. Blood donations across the U.S. surged in the weeks after 9/11.
Security theater
Two studies by a group of Cornell University researchers have found that strict airport security in the United States after the 9/11 attacks has the unintended consequence of increasing road fatalities, as would-be air travelers decide to drive and are exposed to the far greater risk of dying in a car accident. In 2005, the researchers looked at the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and found that the change in passenger travel modes led to 242 added driving deaths per month. In all, they estimated that about 1,200 driving deaths could be attributed to the short-term effects of the attacks.
Don Harris (journalist)
Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
United Kingdom–United States relations
67 Britons were among the 2,977 victims killed during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001, which were orchestrated by al-Qaeda. Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, there was an enormous outpouring of sympathy from the United Kingdom for the American people, and Tony Blair was one of George W. Bush's strongest international supporters for bringing al-Qaeda and the Taliban to justice. Indeed, Blair became the most articulate spokesman. He was the only foreign leader to attend an emergency joint session of Congress called immediately after the attacks (and remains the only foreign leader ever to attend such a session), where he received two standing ovations from members of Congress. During this session of Congress, President George W. Bush stated matter-of-factly that "America has no truer friend than Great Britain".
History of Stamford, Connecticut
On September 11, 2001, nine city residents lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks, all at the World Trade Center: Alexander Braginsky, 38; Stephen Patrick Cherry, 41; Geoffrey W. Cloud, 36; John Fiorito, 40; Bennett Lawson Fisher, 58; Paul R. Hughes, 38; Sean Rooney, 50; Randolph Scott, 48; and Thomas F. Theurkauf Jr., 44. A total of 65 Connecticut residents lost their lives on that day.
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
A "USA Today" report estimated that approximately 200 people perished inside the elevators, while only 21 escaped the elevators. Many elevators did not plunge, but were destroyed by the crash and subsequent fires, or were stranded in the shafts. A locking mechanism prevented escapees and rescuers, except on one elevator, from opening the doors on stranded elevators. One survivor recounted having to pry open a narrow gap between the doors of the elevator to escape by utilizing the stairs.
List of terrorist incidents in New York City
New York City, the largest and most populous city in the United States, has been the target of numerous acts of terrorism throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The city, in particular, was one of the targets of the September 11 attacks, the single deadliest terrorist attack in history, which saw the destruction of the World Trade Center and the loss of 2,753 lives. The most recent fatal terrorist incident was a vehicle-ramming attack in Lower Manhattan, which killed eight people and injured eleven on October 31, 2017.
September 11 attacks
The attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people and the injuries of more than 6,000 others. The death toll included 265 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area, and 125 at the Pentagon. Most of those who perished were civilians, with the exception of 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and the 19 terrorists who died in the attacks. After New York, New Jersey lost the most state citizens, with the city of Hoboken having the most citizens that died in the attacks. More than 90 countries lost citizens in the September 11 attacks; for example, the 67 Britons who died were more than in any other terrorist attack anywhere . The attacks killed about 500 more people than the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and are the deadliest terrorist attacks in world history.
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
On the morning of 11 September 2001, a total of 19 Arab men—15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia—carried out four coordinated attacks in the United States. Four commercial passenger jet airliners were hijacked. The hijackers – members of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell – intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and more than 2,000 people in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours from damage related to the crashes, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C., to target the White House, or the U.S. Capitol. No one aboard the flights survived. According to the New York State Health Department, the death toll among responders including firefighters and police was 836 as of June 2009. Total deaths were 2,996, including the 19 hijackers.
The NIST World Trade Center Disaster Investigation
During the September 11th terrorist attacks, two jet airliners struck the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC), one to each tower. As a result, the two 110 stories-tall skyscrapers collapsed, causing complete destruction to the entire WTC complex and killing 2,997 people. The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. (EDT) after burning for approximately 56 minutes. 29 minutes later, the North Tower collapsed having burned for 102 minutes. When the North Tower collapsed, debris fell on the nearby 7 World Trade Center, damaging it and starting fires that burned for almost seven hours, compromising the building's structural integrity. Seven World Trade Center collapsed at 5:21 p.m. (EDT).
Timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks
9:03:00: Flight 175 crashes at about 590 mph (950 km/h, 264 m/s or 513 knots) into the south face of the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 77 and 85. All 65 people on board the aircraft die instantly on impact, and unknown hundreds in the building as well. By this time, several media organizations, including the three major broadcast networks (who have interrupted their morning shows), are covering the first plane crash—millions see the impact live. Parts of the plane, including the starboard engine, leave the building from its east and north sides, falling to the ground six blocks away.
Timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks
10:03:11: Flight 93 is crashed by its hijackers as a result of fighting in the cockpit 80 miles (129 km) southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Later reports indicate that passengers had learned about the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes and were resisting the hijackers. The 9/11 Commission believed that Flight 93's target was either the United States Capitol building or the White House in Washington, D.C.
United States Army
On 11 September 2001, 53 Army civilians (47 employees and six contractors) and 22 soldiers were among the 125 victims killed in the Pentagon in a terrorist attack when American Airlines Flight 77 commandeered by five Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed into the western side of the building, as part of the September 11 attacks. Lieutenant General Timothy Maude was the highest-ranking military official killed at the Pentagon and the most senior U.S. Army officer killed by foreign action since the death of Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner Jr. on 18 June 1945 in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II.
In response to the 11 September attacks and as part of the Global War on Terror, U.S. and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, displacing the Taliban government. The U.S. Army also led the combined U.S. and allied invasion of Iraq in 2003. It served as the primary source for ground forces with its ability to sustain short and long-term deployment operations. In the following years, the mission changed from conflict between regular militaries to counterinsurgency, resulting in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. service members (as of March 2008) and injuries to thousands more. 23,813 insurgents were killed in Iraq between 2003–2011.
History of the United States
On September 11, 2001 ("9/11"), the United States was struck by a terrorist attack when 19 al-Qaeda hijackers commandeered four airliners to be used in suicide attacks and intentionally crashed two into both twin towers of the World Trade Center and the third into the Pentagon, killing 2,937 victims—206 aboard the three airliners, 2,606 who were in the World Trade Center and on the ground, and 125 who were in the Pentagon. The fourth plane was re-taken by the passengers and crew of the aircraft. While they were not able to land the plane safely, they were able to re-take control of the aircraft and crash it into an empty field in Pennsylvania, killing all 44 people including the four terrorists on board, thereby saving whatever target the terrorists were aiming for. Within two hours, both Twin Towers of the World Trade Center completely collapsed causing massive damage to the surrounding area and blanketing Lower Manhattan in toxic dust clouds. All in all, a total of 2,977 victims perished in the attacks. In response, President George W. Bush on September 20 announced a "War on Terror". On October 7, 2001, the United States and NATO then invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime, which had provided safe haven to al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.
9/11 (disambiguation)
9/11 or the September 11 attacks were a series of attacks on the United States in 2001 by al-Qaeda.
Memorials and services for the September 11 attacks
The 9-11 Remembrance Flag was created to be a permanent reminder of the thousands of people lost in the September 11 attacks. The purpose of keeping the memories of September 11 alive is not to be forever mourning, but for "learning from the circumstances and making every effort to prevent similar tragedies in our future." The flag is also meant to be a reminder of how the people of this country came together to help each other after the attacks. The red background of the flag represents the blood shed by Americans for their country. The stars represent the lost airplanes and their passengers. The blue rectangles stand for the twin towers and the white pentagon represents the Pentagon building. The blue circle symbolizes the unity of this country after the attacks.
Taliban
The assassination of Massoud is believed to have a connection to the September 11 attacks on US soil, which killed nearly 3000 people, and which appeared to be the terrorist attack that Massoud had warned against in his speech to the European Parliament several months earlier. John P. O'Neill was a counter-terrorism expert and the Assistant Director of the FBI until late 2001. He retired from the FBI and was offered the position of director of security at the World Trade Center (WTC). He took the job at the WTC two weeks before 9/11. On 10 September 2001, O'Neill told two of his friends, "We're due. And we're due for something big. ... Some things have happened in Afghanistan. [referring to the assassination of Massoud] I don't like the way things are lining up in Afghanistan. ... I sense a shift, and I think things are going to happen ... soon." O'Neill died on 11 September 2001, when the South Tower collapsed.
History of New Jersey
In the September 11, 2001, attacks, hijackers took control of four domestic U.S. commercial airliners, including United Airlines Flight 93 which departed from Newark International Airport. The attacks caused 2,986 deaths, including about 700 residents of New Jersey. Over 160,000 people were evacuated by ferries and small boats from the Manhattan area to New Jersey because the NYCS and PATH stations were closed down.
Philip J. Purcell
Purcell was at the helm of Morgan Stanley on September 11, 2001, when the terrorist hijacked planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center. More than 3,500 Morgan Stanley employees worked in the World Trade Center. Based on the firm’s experience in the earlier 1993 WTC bombing, contingency plans were in place long before 9/11. As a result, there was a rapid evacuation and organized follow-up on 9/11 that helped mitigate the terrible tragedy. Morgan Stanley employees at the WTC helped save lives of both Morgan Stanley employees and many others.
Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
In the September 11th attacks on the twin towers in New York City, Lower Makefield Township lost six residents, including the captain of United Airlines Flight 175, the highest number in Pennsylvania, which lost a total of 29 tower employees. This high concentration is most likely due to the large number of Manhattan commuters who live there. The Garden of Reflection Memorial in Lower Makefield went into development shortly after the attacks as a dedication to the 17 Bucks County residents who died in the attacks, and it also honors all of the 2,973 victims who lost their lives. The State of Pennsylvania has selected The Garden of Reflection as the Official Pennsylvania 9-11 Memorial, and it was formally dedicated on September 30, 2006. The $1.4 million memorial, designed by Yardley architect Liuba Laschyk, includes twin fountains representing the towers of the World Trade Center; a Walk of Remembrance, with a series of glass panels etched with the names of the 2,973 people who lost their lives in the 9-11 attacks; and a memorial rail etched with the names of the 17 residents from Bucks County who were killed. Each year the Yardley Inn hosts a fundraiser called "Cooking with the Chef" to raise additional funding for maintenance of the Garden of Reflection.
Johnstown Flood
The total death toll was calculated originally as 2,209 people, making the disaster the largest loss of civilian life in the United States at the time. This number of deaths was later surpassed by fatalities in the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, as pointed out by David McCullough in 1968 (pages 266 and 278), a man reported as presumed dead (not known to have been found) had survived. In 1900, Leroy Temple showed up in Johnstown to reveal he had not died but had extricated himself from the flood debris at the stone bridge below Johnstown and walked out of the valley. Until 1900 Temple had been living in Beverly, Massachusetts. Therefore, the official death toll should be 2,208.
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
As of September 28, 2008, a total of over 33,000 police officers, firefighters, responders, and community members have been treated for injuries and sickness related to the 9/11 attacks in New York City, including respiratory conditions, mental health problems like PTSD and depression, gastrointestinal conditions, and at least 4,166 cases of cancer; according to one advocacy group "more cops have died of illness linked to the attack than had perished in it". Talk show host Jon Stewart and others succeeded in pushing for a law passed by Congress in 2015 that permanently extends health care benefits for the responders and adds five years to the victims' compensation program.
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
Contrary to some conspiracy theories about Jews being warned not to go to work that day, the number of Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between 270 and 400, based on the last names of the dead.
Murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi
On September 11, 2001, members of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist group, hijacked four airplanes and perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, killing 2,977 victims. According to family members, Sodhi had become distraught by the attacks.
Post–September 11 anti-war movement
On September 11, 2001 a series of coordinated terrorist attacks against the United States killed approximately 3000 people. These attacks appear to have been carried out by a small group of individuals who formed part of the al-Qaida network: Islamists without formal backing from any state (though there were and are suspicions that Al-Qaida was aided and funded by several Arab/Muslim countries). Following them U.S. president George W. Bush declared a campaign with the stated aim of defeating terrorism which he called the "War on Terrorism".
9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor
The 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor is a decoration in the United States, created specifically to honor the 442 public safety officers who were killed in the line of duty during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the empty wing of The Pentagon.
Empty Sky (memorial)
The design was chosen by unanimous vote of the Families and Survivors Memorial Committee, out of 320 qualified entries in the international design competition. The memorial is dedicated to 746 New Jerseyans killed in the World Trade Center in 1993 and in the September 11 attacks, as well as those who died on September 11, 2001, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation has stated that the goal of this memorial is to "reflect the legacies of those whose lives were lost, that their unfulfilled dreams and hopes may result in a better future for society. Their unique qualities and characteristics enriched our lives immeasurably and through this memorial, their stories live on.
The memorial includes twin walls, transecting a "gently sloped mound anchored by a granite path that is directed toward Ground Zero. Two -high rectangular towers stretch long—the exact width of the World Trade Center towers, the proportion of the walls a symbolic representation of the buildings as if they were lying on their sides. The name of each of the 746 victims is etched in stainless steel in letters. A granite passage is oriented to face the site of the twin towers. The name of the memorial is taken from the Bruce Springsteen song "Empty Sky", which is about the "empty sky" where the towers once stood.
Jan Guillou
Immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Guillou caused controversy when he walked out of the Göteborg Book Fair in the midst of the three minutes of silence observed throughout Europe to honour the victims of the attacks. In an article in "Aftonbladet", Guillou argued that the event was an act of hypocrisy, stating that "the U.S. is the great mass murderer of our time. The wars against Vietnam and its nearby countries alone claimed four million lives. Without a minute of silence in Sweden". He also criticised those who said that the attacks were "an attack on us all" by stating that the attacks were only "an attack on U.S. imperialism".
Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks
By June 2007, the number of people filing claims against the city, regarding exposure to Ground Zero toxins, reached 10,000. Attorney David Worby is leading a class action lawsuit representing 8,000 people. By September 2007, the number of plaintiffs in the case reached 10,000. "I started this suit on behalf of one cop that got sick." He continued, "Nobody would touch the case with a 10-foot pole because it was considered unpatriotic to say anything against the cleanup or the EPA.In 2008, the lead researcher of a New York State Department of Health study informed "The New York Post" of a study documenting at least 204 deaths of rescue and recovery workers since September 11, 2001. The researchers for the study confirmed 98 deaths with death certificates. The researchers showed that 77 persons died of illnesses, including 55 from lung and various other cancers. Kitty Gelberg, New York state Bureau of Occupational Health's chief epidemiologist said, "We're not saying they are all World Trade Center related; we're just saying this is what people are dying from." Many of the 55 responders who died from cancer had cancer before September 11, 2001, but most of the cancer patients developed the disease afterward.
John Kavanagh (Arizona politician)
Kavanagh was the lead sponsor of a bill to remove eleven controversial phrases from Arizona's controversial 911 Monument. As a retired Port Authority police officer, Kavanagh was upset by the controversial phrases because he personally knew many of the 37 Port Authority police officers who died at the World Trade Center on September 11. One of the phrases involved the name of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a victim of a racist retaliatory attack in Arizona after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Claiming that Sodhi, who was murdered four days after the attacks by a white supremacist seeking revenge for the 9/11 attacks, he said Sodhi was "not a victim of 9/11," Kavanagh further stated "It's part of a myth that, following 9/11, Americans went into a xenophobic rage against foreigners. That's not true. America's reaction towards foreigners was commendable." The bill passed, but was vetoed and did not take effect. Kavanagh did meet with Sodhi's family, recognized his error in proposing to remove Sodhi's name and had agreed to keep his name on the memorial.
New York City
In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s. By the mid 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy. New York's population reached all-time highs in the 2000 Census and then again in the 2010 Census.
The city suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Two of the four airliners highjacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, destroying them and killing 2,192 civilians, 343 firefighters, and 71 law enforcement officers. The North Tower was subsequently the tallest building ever to be destroyed and still is. The rebuilding of the area, has created a new One World Trade Center, and a 9/11 memorial and museum along with other new buildings and infrastructure. The World Trade Center PATH station, which had opened on July 19, 1909 as the Hudson Terminal, was also destroyed in the attack. A temporary station was built and opened on November 23, 2003. An permanent rail station designed by Santiago Calatrava, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the city's third-largest hub, was completed in 2016. The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the sixth-tallest building in the world by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic in reference to the year of U.S. independence.
Emergency workers killed in the September 11 attacks
Several New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers saw Flight 11's impact with the North Tower and immediately reported it to dispatchers. Ten minutes after Flight 11's impact and seven minutes before Flight 175's impact, the NYPD chief of department was en route to the scene and raised the police mobilization to level 4, thereby sending around 22 lieutenants, 100 sergeants, and 800 police officers to the World Trade Center. NYPD personnel were primarily responsible for assisting in evacuations and helping injured civilians.
Three police helicopters were also deployed to report on conditions and assess the feasibility of a rooftop landing or of special rescue operations. Once Flight 175 had struck the South Tower, another level 4 mobilization was ordered, bringing to almost 2,000 the number of NYPD personnel at the scene. Some were ordered to enter the World Trade Center to assist with the FDNY's evacuations.
Backstreet Boys
Shortly after returning to the Black and Blue Tour, the group faced a harrowing loss with the occurrence of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. On the night of September 10, the band had completed a sold-out show in Boston, Massachusetts and the following morning Littrell's wife Leighanne had planned on catching a flight back to Los Angeles aboard American Airlines Flight 11, along with set carpenter Daniel Lee, who was returning home to Los Angeles to see his wife, who was due to give birth to their second child. That night, however, Leighanne cancelled her flight after deciding to spend more time with her husband. Tragically, Lee was among 92 people killed when the hijacked plane was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The next day, during a concert on the next leg of their tour in Toronto, Littrell gave a brief speech on Lee and led the audience in a brief moment of silence for Lee and all the victims of the attacks.
Outline of the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks were four coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally crashed two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. Hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth jet, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attempted to take control before it could reach the hijacker's intended target in Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks, and the 9/11 attacks have had broad and lasting consequences to military policy, politics, and foreign relations. Effects have also been seen in literature, film, and popular culture.
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
614 people were killed at or above the floors of impact in the South Tower. Only 18 people are known to have managed to escape using staircase A before the South Tower collapsed; a further 11 people killed in the attacks are known to have been killed below the impact zone after United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. The 9/11 Commission notes that this fact strongly indicates that evacuation below the impact zones was a success, allowing most to safely evacuate before the collapse of the World Trade Center.
International Freedom Center
The IFC proposal had received complaints from some families of September 11 victims. In August 2005, officials stated that the Center would have been required to respond to objections raised by victims' families before it was approved to go forward. Many relatives of 9/11 victims had denounced the International Freedom Center plan as an insult to the 2,749 people who died at the WTC, because it would paint them as a little more than a footnote to the world's march toward freedom. The families, police, and firefighters said that the IFC's plan to use hallowed land at Ground Zero to highlight poverty as a barrier to freedom diminishes the events of 9/11. It has also been disparagingly compared to comedian and political commentator Bill Maher's suggestion immediately after 9/11 that reconstruction should include a "Why They Hate Us Pavilion."
9/11 Living Memorial Plaza
The folded part of the flag is reminiscent of the collapse of the towers in a cloud of dust. The flag morphs into a six-meter high memorial flame representative of a torch. It is the first and only monument outside of the United States which lists the names of the nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks.
American Airlines Flight 587
One of the passengers killed on the flight was Hilda Yolanda Mayol, a 26-year-old American woman on her way to vacation in her native Dominican Republic. Two months earlier, on 9/11, Mayol was working at a restaurant on the ground floor of the World Trade Center and escaped before the tower collapsed.
Stuyvesant High School
Nine alumni were killed in the World Trade Center attack. Another alumnus, Richard Ben-Veniste of the class of 1960, was on the 9/11 Commission. On October 2, 2001, the school newspaper, "The Spectator", created a special 24-page full-color 9/11 insert containing student photos, reflections and stories. On November 20, 2001, the magazine was distributed for free to the greater metropolitan area, enclosed within 830,000 copies of "The New York Times". In the months after the attacks, Annie Thoms, an English teacher at Stuyvesant and the theater adviser at the time, suggested that the students take accounts of staff and students' reactions during and after September 11, 2001, and turn them into a series of monologues. Thoms then published these monologues as "With Their Eyes: September 11—The View from a High School at Ground Zero".
Emergency workers killed in the September 11 attacks
Of the 2,977 victims killed in the September 11 attacks, 412 were emergency workers in New York City who responded to the World Trade Center. This included:
Peoples Temple
In all, 918 people died, including 276 children. It was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the events of September 11, 2001. This includes four that died at the Temple headquarters in Georgetown that night.
History of the United States (1991–2008)
On the morning of September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked by 19 members of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. The first hijacked airliner, American Airlines Flight 11, struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 A.M. (EST) in New York City; with a second, United Airlines Flight 175, striking the South Tower less than twenty minutes later at 9:03 A.M. (EST), resulting in the collapse of both 110 story skyscrapers, and the destruction of the World Trade Center. The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense) in Arlington County, Virginia, demolishing a section of the outer southwest facing wall. After discovering that their plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was going to be used as a missile, passengers attempted to regain control of the plane which had been redirected towards Washington, D.C. However, after regaining control from the hijackers, the plane crashed near a rural community near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In total, the attacks killed 2,996 people—2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and the 19 terrorists. The 9/11 attack was the single deadliest international terrorist incident and the most devastating foreign attack on American soil since the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It refocused American attention to a long war on terrorism, beginning with an attack on al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan.
9/11 conspiracy theories
Some proponents of this believe that Jewish employees were forewarned by Israeli intelligence to skip work on September 11, resulting in no Jewish deaths at the World Trade Center. According to Cinnamon Stillwell, some 9/11 conspiracy theorists put this number as high as 4,000 Jewish people skipping work. This was first reported on September 17 by the Lebanese Hezbollah-owned satellite television channel Al-Manar and is believed to be based on the September 12 edition of "The Jerusalem Post" that said "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of 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.
September 11 attacks
Four passenger airliners operated by two major U.S. passenger air carriers (United Airlines and American Airlines)—all of which departed from airports in the northeastern United States bound for California—were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists. Two of the planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South towers, respectively, of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. Within an hour and 42 minutes, both 110-story towers collapsed. Debris and the resulting fires caused a partial or complete collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex, including the 47-story 7 World Trade Center tower, as well as significant damage to ten other large surrounding structures. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense) in Arlington County, Virginia, which led to a partial collapse of the building's west side. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was initially flown toward Washington, D.C., but crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after its passengers thwarted the hijackers. 9/11 is the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 343 and 72 killed, respectively.
History of New York (state)
New York entered a new era following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the worst terrorist attack ever to take place on American soil. Four hijacked passenger jets came towards the USA. Two of the hijacked passenger jets crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, destroying them, and killing almost 3,000 people. One flew into the Pentagon demolishing the walls. The final one was taken back over by the pilots and crashed into an open grassland with 296 out of the 500 people dead. Thousands of New Yorkers volunteered their time to search the ruin for survivors and remains in the following weeks.
Lou Angeli
On September 11, 2007, he announced start up of production on a new documentary dealing with illness and death among 9/11's emergency responders. In a press interview he noted that "70,000 emergency personnel and support volunteers responded to New York's call for help." He continued, "According to The World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program , fully 70% of these men and women are ill ... the effects of having worked at Ground Zero." Angeli cited estimates that by the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster, 1,000 emergency personnel will have died of illness contracted at Ground Zero.
The Path to 9/11
The miniseries presented a dramatization of the sequence of events leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda on the United States, starting from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and up to the minutes after its collapse in 2001. The movie takes the point of view of two main protagonists: John P. O'Neill, and a composite Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent, "Kirk". O'Neill was the real-life Special Agent in charge of Al Qaeda investigations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He died in the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11 shortly after retiring from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and taking the position of Director of Security for the World Trade Center. The composite CIA agent "Kirk" is shown dealing with various American allies, especially Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, in Afghanistan. In addition, "Patricia", a CIA headquarters analyst, represents the views of the rank and file at CIA headquarters. The miniseries features dramatizations of various incidents summarized in the 9/11 Commission Report and represented in high-level discussions held in the Clinton and Bush administrations. The final hour of the movie dramatizes the events of 9/11, including a recreation of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, Tom Burnett's calls to his wife, and John Miller's reporting near the scene of the attacks. The film concludes with information about the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, as well as the performance evaluation the Commission gave the government when it reconvened in 2005.
History of New York City (1978–present)
On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist hijackers linked to the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda piloted two hijacked passenger airliners into each of the twin 110 story World Trade Center towers. The airplanes, designated for transcontinental flights and therefore fully loaded with jet fuel, were hijacked mid-flight and intentionally crashed into the towers in the early morning hours of September 11. The crashes caused massive structural damage during impact, ripping gaping holes into the towers, and ignited raging fires, that caused both weakened towers to collapse in less than two hours. Together with a simultaneous attack on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a failed plane hijacking that resulted in a plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 2,977 victims died in the attacks.
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
265 fatalities aboard the 4 planes include 87 civilians (including 11 crew members) and the five hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11; 60 civilians (including 9 crew members) and the five hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 175; 59 civilians (including 6 crew members) and the five hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77; and 39 civilians (including 7 crew members), a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer, and the four hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93. The dead included eight children: five on American Airlines Flight 77, aged 3 to 11, and three on United Airlines Flight 175, aged 2, 3, and 4. The youngest victim was a two-and-a-half-year-old child on Flight 175 and the oldest was an 85-year-old passenger on Flight 11.