9/11: 300-Ton Missiles
Two Hours That Shook The World
From the 9/11 Commission: At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the upper portion of the North Tower, cutting through floors 93 to 99. Evidence suggests that all three of the building's stairwells became impassable from the 92nd floor up. Hundreds of civilians were killed instantly by the impact. Hundreds more remained alive but trapped.
The FDNY response began within five seconds of the crash. According to Division Chief Peter Hayden, "We had a very strong sense we would lose firefighters and that we were in deep trouble, but we had estimates of 25,000 to 50,000 civilians in the World Trade Center complex, and we had to try to rescue them."
At 8:58, while en route, the NYPD Chief of Department raised the NYPD's mobilization to level 4, thereby sending to the WTC approximately 22 lieutenants, 100 sergeants, and 800 police officers from all over the city.
Also by about 9:00, transit officers began shutting down subway stations in the vicinity of the World Trade Center and evacuating civilians from those stations. Around the city, the NYPD cleared major thoroughfares for emergency vehicles to access the WTC. The NYPD and PAPD coordinated the closing of bridges and tunnels into Manhattan.
In the 17-minute period between 8:46 and 9:03 A.M. on September 11, New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had mobilized the largest rescue operation in the city's history. Well over a thousand first responders had been deployed, an evacuation had begun, and the critical decision that the fire could not be fought had been made.
The 9/11 Commission goes on to detail: The second plane hit at 9:03, the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower from the south, crashing through the 77th to 85th floors. What had been the largest and most complicated rescue operation in city history instantly doubled in magnitude.
The only survivor known to have escaped from the heart of the impact zone described the 81st floor-where the wing of the plane had sliced through his office-as a "demolition" site in which everything was "broken up" and the smell of jet fuel was so strong that it was almost impossible to breathe. This person escaped by means of an unlikely rescue, aided by a civilian fire warden descending from a higher floor, who, critically, had been provided with a flashlight.
BusinessInsider.com details another hero: 24-year-old Welles Crowther was an equities trader at Sandler O'Neill on the 104th floor. The man, who was a volunteer firefighter in his teens, made his way down to the 78th-floor sky lobby. Amid the smoke, chaos, and debris, Crowther helped injured and disoriented office workers to safety, risking his own life in the process. He directed survivors to the stairway and encouraged them to help others while he carried an injured woman on his back. After bringing her 15 floors down to safety, he made his way back up to help others." "Everyone who can stand, stand now," Crowther told survivors while directing them to a stairway exit. "If you can help others, do so."
The article quotes Ling Young, a survivor: “He's definitely my guardian angel because, without him, we would be sitting there, waiting until the building came down." Crowther is credited with saving at least a dozen people that day. His body was later recovered alongside firefighters in a stairwell heading back up the tower with the "jaws of life" rescue tool.
Another hero, Father Mychal Judge, was chaplain to the Fire Department. He prayed over bodies in the street and entered the North Tower lobby where he continued to pray over the dead and console the wounded.
The 9/11 Commission details: The emergency response effort escalated with the crash of United 175 into the South Tower. With that additional effort, communications, as well as command and control, became increasingly critical and increasingly difficult. Yet, first responders continued to assist thousands of civilians in evacuating the towers.
In Arlington, Virginia at 9:37, the west wall of the Pentagon was hit by hijacked American Airlines Flight 77. The crash caused immediate and catastrophic damage. All 64 people aboard the airliner were killed, as were 125 people inside the Pentagon (70 civilians and 55 military service members).
Inside the building, Colonel Paul Anderson thought the entire Pentagon had been lifted off its foundation. He opened exit doors and helped dozens of people get to safety, including a pregnant co-worker. He then ran towards the burning, gaping hole in the Pentagon to assist people there. Over the next 15 minutes, he carried a woman with a fractured hip to safety, rescued a woman pinned under a safe, and extinguished a man who was on fire, and carried him to paramedics.
One hundred six people were seriously injured and transported to area hospitals.
At 9:57, over the skies of Pennsylvania, the passengers of United Flight 93 were aware of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. And they knew their plane was a 300-ton missile traveling towards a target, probably the Capitol. Under the leadership of Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick, and Todd Beamer, who commanded “Let’s Roll”, the passengers stormed the cockpit. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. killing all 44 passengers on board.
At 9:58, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, killing all civilians and emergency personnel inside, as well a number of individuals-both first responders, and civilians-in the concourse, in the Marriott, and on neighboring streets. The building collapsed into itself, causing a ferocious windstorm and creating a massive debris cloud.
The debris crashed through the lobby of the neighboring North Tower killing many inside, including Father Judge.
The North Tower collapsed at 10:28, killing all civilians alive on upper floors, an undetermined number below, and scores of first responders. The FDNY Chief of Department, the Port Authority Police Department Superintendent, and many of their senior staff were killed. Incredibly, twelve firefighters, one Port Authority officer and three civilians who were descending stairwell B of the North Tower survived its collapse.
In his book Two Hours that Shook the World, Fred Halliday writes: The events of September 11 2001 and their consequences are, by any standards, a global event: the explosions themselves killed people of many countries, including hundreds of Muslims, Pakistani and Arab professionals in the World Trade Center towers and the 200 Yemeni doormen and workers on the ground. The explosions were watched, with incredulity and fear, across the world.
The nation suffered the largest loss of life-2,973-on its soil from a hostile attack. The FDNY suffered 343 fatalities; The Port Authority suffered 37 fatalities, and the NYPD suffered 23 fatalities.
Many more thousands of lives would have been lost at the Pentagon or in Manhattan if it were not for the quick thinking, calm resolve, and foresight of heroes in and out of uniform who guided people to safety and gave them water to wash their debris-caked faces.
If 9/11 represented the worst of humanities’ compulsion to injure one another, it also showed our endless capacity for bravery, compassion, and resolve.The only survivor known to have escaped from the heart of the impact zone described the 81st floor-where the wing of the plane had sliced through his office-as a "demolition" site in which everything was "broken up" and the smell of jet fuel was so strong that it was almost impossible to breathe. This person escaped by means of an unlikely rescue, aided by a civilian fire warden descending from a higher floor, who, critically, had been provided with a flashlight.
BusinessInsider.com details another hero: 24-year-old Welles Crowther was an equities trader at Sandler O'Neill on the 104th floor. The man, who was a volunteer firefighter in his teens, made his way down to the 78th-floor sky lobby. Amid the smoke, chaos, and debris, Crowther helped injured and disoriented office workers to safety, risking his own life in the process. He directed survivors to the stairway and encouraged them to help others while he carried an injured woman on his back. After bringing her 15 floors down to safety, he made his way back up to help others." "Everyone who can stand, stand now," Crowther told survivors while directing them to a stairway exit. "If you can help others, do so."
The article quotes Ling Young, a survivor: “He's definitely my guardian angel because, without him, we would be sitting there, waiting until the building came down." Crowther is credited with saving at least a dozen people that day. His body was later recovered alongside firefighters in a stairwell heading back up the tower with the "jaws of life" rescue tool.
Another hero, Father Mychal Judge, was chaplain to the Fire Department. He prayed over bodies in the street and entered the North Tower lobby where he continued to pray over the dead and console the wounded.
The 9/11 Commission details: The emergency response effort escalated with the crash of United 175 into the South Tower. With that additional effort, communications, as well as command and control, became increasingly critical and increasingly difficult. Yet, first responders continued to assist thousands of civilians in evacuating the towers.
In Arlington, Virginia at 9:37, the west wall of the Pentagon was hit by hijacked American Airlines Flight 77. The crash caused immediate and catastrophic damage. All 64 people aboard the airliner were killed, as were 125 people inside the Pentagon (70 civilians and 55 military service members).
Inside the building, Colonel Paul Anderson thought the entire Pentagon had been lifted off its foundation. He opened exit doors and helped dozens of people get to safety, including a pregnant co-worker. He then ran towards the burning, gaping hole in the Pentagon to assist people there. Over the next 15 minutes, he carried a woman with a fractured hip to safety, rescued a woman pinned under a safe, and extinguished a man who was on fire, and carried him to paramedics.
One hundred six people were seriously injured and transported to area hospitals.
At 9:57, over the skies of Pennsylvania, the passengers of United Flight 93 were aware of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. And they knew their plane was a 300-ton missile traveling towards a target, probably the Capitol. Under the leadership of Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick, and Todd Beamer, who commanded “Let’s Roll”, the passengers stormed the cockpit. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. killing all 44 passengers on board.
At 9:58, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, killing all civilians and emergency personnel inside, as well a number of individuals-both first responders, and civilians-in the concourse, in the Marriott, and on neighboring streets. The building collapsed into itself, causing a ferocious windstorm and creating a massive debris cloud.
The debris crashed through the lobby of the neighboring North Tower killing many inside, including Father Judge.
The North Tower collapsed at 10:28, killing all civilians alive on upper floors, an undetermined number below, and scores of first responders. The FDNY Chief of Department, the Port Authority Police Department Superintendent, and many of their senior staff were killed. Incredibly, twelve firefighters, one Port Authority officer and three civilians who were descending stairwell B of the North Tower survived its collapse.
In his book Two Hours that Shook the World, Fred Halliday writes: The events of September 11 2001 and their consequences are, by any standards, a global event: the explosions themselves killed people of many countries, including hundreds of Muslims, Pakistani and Arab professionals in the World Trade Center towers and the 200 Yemeni doormen and workers on the ground. The explosions were watched, with incredulity and fear, across the world.
The nation suffered the largest loss of life-2,973-on its soil from a hostile attack. The FDNY suffered 343 fatalities; The Port Authority suffered 37 fatalities, and the NYPD suffered 23 fatalities.
Many more thousands of lives would have been lost at the Pentagon or in Manhattan if it were not for the quick thinking, calm resolve, and foresight of heroes in and out of uniform who guided people to safety and gave them water to wash their debris-caked faces.
If 9/11 represented the worst of humanities’ compulsion to injure one another, it also showed our endless capacity for bravery, compassion, and resolve.
