|
September 11, 2001 was the United Nations International Day of Peace and the
first day of Culture of Peace Week. [www.peaceday.org]
All times are Eastern Daylight Time. For many of the events of 9/11,
there are minor time discrepancies in different accounts. In these
cases, I've chosen the time from what seems to be the most reliable source.
==On the morning of September 11, weather
conditions over the entire eastern seaboard are clear, with virtually
limitless visibility. Throughout the continental United States the
weather is generally tranquil. [tele.Dec.16.2001
/ ust.Aug.12.2002]
Atta (right) and al-Omari begin their day,
going through security at the Portland airport
==0604-0645 AM > After nearly missing their
plane, Mohamed Atta and his colleague al-Omari fly from Portland, Maine, to
Logan Airport in Boston. [mcder / inside /
911cm]
==Early morning > For various minor
reasons, ten of the nineteen hijackers - including Atta - trigger special
screenings as they go through airport security. None are
detained. Hijackers Almihdhar and Alhazmi are being sought by the FBI
and are on the terrorist watch-list, but they are able to board Flight
77. [911cm / wap.Mar.02.2002 /
nwd.Sep.23.2001]
==0759 AM > American Flight 11, a Boeing
767 with 11 crew and 81 passengers, takes off from Boston’s Logan Airport for
Los Angeles, 14 minutes after its scheduled departure time. There are
five hijackers on board, including Mohamed Atta and
al-Omari. [911cm / bog.Nov.23.2001 /
wap.Sep.12.2001]
==0814 AM > United Flight 175, a Boeing 767
with 9 crew and 56 passengers, takes off from Logan for LA, 14 minutes after
its departure time. Among the passengers are five hijackers, including
trained pilot Marwan Al-Shehhi. [911cm /
bog.Nov.23.2001 / wap.Sep.12.2001]
==0814 AM > The 9/11 attacks begin:
Flight 11 is hijacked over central Massachusetts by Atta and his
assistants, who slash a passenger’s throat, stab two flight attendants in
first class, and enter the cockpit. The plane soon begins to deviate
northwest from its planned course and fails to respond to air traffic
controllers. At 0821, Flight 11 cuts off its transponder.
Strangely, most of the passengers in the main cabin are evidently unaware
that a hijacking is underway. [0911cm /
abc.Jul.18.2002 / inside / cbs.Oct.12.2001]
==0819 AM > Flight attendant Betty Ong
calls American Airlines staff on the ground and reports the hijacking of
Flight 11, followed a few minutes later by flight attendant Amy
Sweeney. Ong and Sweeney spend their last minutes giving detailed
eyewitness accounts, providing information that establishes links to Mohamed
Atta and al-Qaeda. Managers at American Airlines headquarters in Fort Worth
are aware of the calls by 0830, but they fail to transmit the news.
[911cm / abc.Jul.18.2002 / nyob.Jun.20.2004]
==0820 AM > American Flight 77, a Boeing
757 with 6 crew and 58 passengers, takes off from Washington's Dulles Airport
for Los Angeles, 10 minutes after its scheduled departure. There are
five hijackers on board, including Nawaq Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Hani
Hanjour. Alhazmi will pilot the plane for the hijackers.
[911cm / bog.Nov.23.2001 / wap.Sep.12.2001 / gdn.Sep.09.2002]
==0824-0838 AM > The Flight 11 hijackers
accidentally intermittently broadcast their voices over the radio.
Boston air traffic controllers hear the inadvertent transmission, realize
that they're dealing with a hijacking on Flight 11, and send warnings up the
FAA chain of command. A hijacker is heard saying "We have more
planes. We have other planes," but the controllers don't yet grasp what
he means - only after 0900 AM do FAA officials realize that they're dealing
with multiple hijackings. [bog.Nov.23.2001 /
911cm / csm.Sep.13.2001]
==0828 AM > Flight 11 veers toward New York
City, flying south down the Hudson River
valley. [csm.Sep.13.2001 / inside]
==0830 AM, approximately > In the last minutes
before Flight 11 hits the North Tower, key US government officials and
military officers are widely scattered. President Bush is in Sarasota,
Florida, promoting the administration's education proposals. Vice
President Cheney, National Security Adviser Rice, and Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld are all in their offices - the first two in the West Wing of the
White House, and the latter at the Pentagon. Secretary of State Powell
is in Lima, having breakfast with the president of Peru. CIA Director
Tenet is having breakfast and counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke is
attending a conference - in both cases, they are three blocks from the White
House. General Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is
flying to Europe. Attorney General Ashcroft is flying to
Milwaukee. The new FBI Director, Robert Mueller, and Transportation
Secretary Mineta are both in their respective offices in Washington.
FEMA Director Allbaugh is in Montana. [wap.Jan.27.2002
/ clarke / sencc.Sep.20.2001 / abc.Sep.14.2002]
==0838 AM > The military first learns of
the hijackings when the FAA's Boston Center notifies the regional
headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) of the
hijacking of Flight 11. NORAD is undergoing a training exercise and is
already in a high state of readiness, but it has no plans for dealing with
this unforeseen situation. [911cm]
=Immediately after NORAD learns of the
hijacking, the two F-15s on alert at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod
are placed on battle stations. See 0846 [mcder]
==0842 AM > United Flight 93, a Boeing 757
with 7 crew and 37 passengers, takes off from Newark for San Francisco, 42
minutes after its scheduled departure and more than 25 minutes late. The
delay will give the passengers the opportunity to learn what happened to the
other hijacked planes before their turn comes. There are four hijackers
on board, including Ziad al-Jarrah. [911cm /
bog.Nov.23.2001 / wap.Sep.12.2001]
==0842 AM > About this time Flight 175
is hijacked over northern New Jersey. A brief emergency signal is
sent, the plane veers off course, and soon afterwards its transponder code is
altered. Repeated attempts to contact the plane go unanswered. At
0852, United ground personnel get a call from a distraught flight attendant,
who says "Oh my God. The crew has been killed, a flight attendant has
been stabbed. We've been hijacked." - and then the line goes
dead. [nyt.Oct.16.2001 / inside /
bog.Nov.23.2001 / 911cm]
==0844 AM > The last customers to leave alive
take the elevator down from Windows on the World Restaurant on the 107th
floor of the North Tower of the World Trade
Center. [nyt.May.26.2002]
=Just before the first plane hits, it is
estimated that there are between 16,400 and 18,800 people in the World Trade
Center complex, including about 14,100 in the Twin
Towers. [911cm / dwyer]
==0845 AM > Still communicating with an
American Airlines ground manager, flight attendant Sweeney on Flight 11 says
"I see the water. I see the buildings. I see buildings," and notes
that the plane was flying very low. The ground manager said that at
that point "She took a very slow, deep breath and then just said, 'Oh,
my God!' Very slowly, very calmly, very quietly. It wasn't in panic… Seconds later,
there was a very, very loud static on the other end."
[abc.Jul.18.2002]
Flight 11 strikes the North Tower
==0846:31 AM > Mohamed Atta
crashes American Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
At the instant of impact, a man quietly eating breakfast at a restaurant
several blocks away sees all the pigeons in the street suddenly take flight.
The plane comes in from the north at about 470 miles per hour, striking the
93rd through 99th floors and flying directly into the offices of Marsh &
McLennan. Fragments of the airliner and thousands of gallons of burning
aviation fuel explode through the impact zone and erupt out the south face of
the tower. Some debris lands as far as five blocks away. Fireballs shoot down
elevator shafts and burst out on several lower floors, including the lobby.
The North Tower leans from the impact, sways back and forth several times,
and then manages to right itself - but more than half of its exterior and
interior support columns have been destroyed by the crash, and the remaining
steel trusses have lost their insulation and are exposed to the intense heat
of the fire. Aviation fuel pours down stairwells, elevator shafts, and the
sides of the building. The blast and fire instantly kill about 300 or more
people, and trap 1,000 or more survivors in the upper floors or just under
the impact zone. Many elevator passengers are killed or trapped. The uppermost
stories of the North Tower very quickly begin to fill with
smoke. [dwyer / 911cm /
nyt.Sep.12.2001+May.26.2002 / inside / endur / ust.Sep.04.2002]
=Immediately after the North Tower is struck,
rescue operations are begun by some Port Authority Police and a couple of
NYPD officers who happen to be on the scene. [911cm]
=Above the 91st floor of the North Tower
no one gets out alive, but below the damaged area, the great majority survive
- only about 5% of the deaths at the WTC occur below the impact zone
(not including airline and rescue personnel fatalities). Port Authority
Police order the North Tower evacuated within three minutes of the plane
crash, though people in the building at the time of impact don't need to be
told to leave. Despite the 1993 bombing, there had been no plans or drills
for a full-building evacuation - nonetheless, the improvised mass evacuation
is handled efficiently. Most Port Authority workers evacuate smoothly:
"Nobody pushed. We literally made our way down 67 floors in a conga
line," said one trainee. The agency reassembles in Jersey City and is
functioning again within a couple hours. Altogether, about 12,000 people make
it safely out of the two towers. [nyt.May.26.2002
/ 911cm / wap.Sep.13.2001 / spti.Sep.08.2002 / dwyer]
=In the neighboring South Tower, people near
windows facing the North Tower feel the intense heat of the fireball.
Hundreds of office workers immediately begin to leave the building - one
makes it all the way from the upper floors of the South Tower to Brooklyn in
the 16 minutes before the second plane hits. Other personnel hesitate. People
generally left or stayed - and lived or died - in groups; for example, at
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, on the 88th and 89th floors, nearly all the investment
banking staff leave, while nearly all the equities traders stay. Many
employees make the decision to stay or go by following the lead of their
bosses. See 0855 AM [nyt.May.26.2002 /
ust.Sep.03+Sep.06.2002 / dwyer]
==0846:43 AM > In what may be the first
emergency call after the attack, Fire Chief Joe Pfeiffer radios in a
level-two alarm to the Fire Department only twelve seconds after Flight 11
hit the North Tower, by which time he is already on his way to the scene.
Pfeiffer had been working nearby and had witnessed the crash - a French
documentary filmmaker who happened to be with him caught the impact explosion
on film. By 0859 it is expanded to a five-alarm, the highest alarm level
possible in New York City. See 0850 AM [dwyer
/ inside]
=At 0847 AM, the first call to 911 reports a
"building explosion." At 0850:12 AM, the Fire Department's
Emergency Management Service logs the message "MC STS (male caller
states) -- PLANE JUST FLEW INTO WORLD TRADE CENTER---POSS COMMERCIAL
AIRPLANE." This is followed by a flood of emergency calls, many
directly from desperate victims trapped in the towers, and the 911 system
soon become overwhelmed. In the confusion, some emergency operators advise
callers from the Towers to stay where they are rather than evacuate, advice
that was fatal in some cases. [nydn.Sep.16.2001 /
inside / 911cm]
=Other emergency services are unaware of the
attack for several minutes. Around 0850, a woman in Connecticut who had been
called by her trapped husband conveys his information to a local 911 service.
Apparently thinking it’s a crank call, the operators laugh and tell her
"Oh yeah, we'll make sure we pass along the message."
[nyt.May.26.2002]
=Ezra Aviles, a Port Authority senior
manager on the 61st floor of the North Tower, watches Flight 11 approach and
crash into the building. He immediately begins making a series of phone calls
to police and to Port Authority officials, giving some of the first clear
descriptions of what has happened and urging a building evacuation. Aviles
does not make it out of the tower before its
collapse. [dwyer / nwd.Oct.11.2001]
=The men and women trapped in the North Tower
quickly begin sending cell phone or e-mail communications to their families,
friends, and co-workers. The group stranded in Windows on the World alone
transmits at least 41 messages within the first few minutes. It's been
estimated that about a third of the people trapped in the towers are able to
send final messages. [dwyer /
nyt.May.26.2002]
==0846 AM > Just as Flight 11 hits the
North Tower, Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod receives orders from
NORAD to scramble fighters. Otis is 153 miles from Manhattan. See
0853 AM [911cm]
==0848 AM > The first news reports of
the 9/11 attacks are broadcast, with CNN evidently providing the earliest
television coverage. CNN Anchor Carol Lin breaks the story: "This just
in. You are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is
the World Trade Center, and have unconfirmed reports this morning that a
plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN
Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling
our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened. But clearly,
something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south
end of the island Manhattan." [bbc.Sep.14.2001
/ cnn.Sep.11.2001]
=The very early news reports are often garbled
and not all announcers fully grasp what’s happening. Just after the
first crash, a frightened group of office workers temporarily trapped on the
wrecked, smoke-filled 89th floor of the North Tower hear DJs on a radio talk
show laughing and joking about kamikazes hitting the World Trade
Center. [nyt.Sep.16.2001 / inside]
==0848 AM > New York City’s Office of
Emergency Management (OEM) begins to activate the Emergency Operations Center
to coordinate response to the disaster. Unfortunately, the Center had been
located in the World Trade Center at the insistence of Mayor Giuliani and
despite the advice of some emergency-response experts. Around 0930 AM, the
$13 million, state-of-the-art OEM Center is evacuated because of a false
report that a third hijacked airliner is approaching.
[911cm / dwyer]
==0848 or 0849AM > The first people fall or
jump from the North Tower. The earliest jumpers plunge from around the impact
zone, probably fleeing the intense heat of the fires, but soon people are
falling from the upper stories, desperately trying to escape the smoke.
"They looked like rag dolls being tossed. Their bodies were lifeless;
just twirling in the air, dressed in suits," one observer recalled. A
man and woman are seen holding hands as they fall; one woman jumps clutching
her purse. Some of those hanging out of broken windows may have been nudged
out by the crush of people trying to gasp clean air. Probably over 50
individuals plunge to their death from the North Tower before it collapses,
and at least one person on the ground, firefighter Daniel Suhr, is struck and
killed by a jumper. Few people jump from the South
Tower. [dwyer / nyt.Sep.16.2001+ May.26.2002
/ wap.Sep.16.2001 / wiki]
==0850 AM > An airline pilot flying near
New York radios "Anybody know what that smoke is in Lower
Manhattan?" [ap.Oct.16.2001]
==0850 AM > Fire Chief Joe Pfeiffer
arrives at the North Tower, the first fire commander on the scene. A command
post is set up in the lobby. A senior OEM official arrives at about the same
time. [dwyer / 911cm]
==0850 AM, approximately > Near the White
House, CIA Director Tenet is having breakfast with former Senator David Boren
when several of Tenet's security guards rush to the table and tell him that
the World Trade Center has been "attacked" by an airplane. Tenet
comments to Boren "You know, this has bin Laden's fingerprints all over
it." Before leaving, he adds "I wonder if it has anything to do
with this guy taking pilot training," in a reference to Zacarias
Moussaoui. [abc.Sep.14.2002 / woodw1]
==0852 AM > The first police helicopter
arrives over the World Trade Center. Its reports on the extent of damage to
the North Tower are not passed on to the Fire
Department. [dwyer]
==0853 AM > Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Base on Cape
Cod. Without a clear target at this time, they are initially ordered into
a holding pattern off Long Island. See 0925 AM.
[911cm]
==0853 AM, approximately > Flight 77 is
hijacked over southern Ohio - it begins to turn back to the east, cuts
off its transponder, and fails to respond to air traffic controllers.
When they loose track of it, FAA controllers in Indianapolis - who are still
unaware of what’s happening in New York - initially assume that the plane has
crashed. Flight 77 flies eastwards toward Washington, undetected until
0932. [911cm / wap.Sep.12.2001 / nwd.Sep.23.2001]
==0855 AM > An announcement is made over
the South Tower's public address system: "Your attention please, ladies
and gentlemen. Building 2 (the South Tower) is secure. There is no need to
evacuate Building 2…" (See 0902 AM) The message reflects the prevailing
theory that emergency evacuations from high-rise buildings pose more dangers
than having people stay put. A man with a megaphone in the 44th floor sky
lobby tells those leaving to return to their offices. Many people who were
evacuating go back upstairs. A very few minutes before the South Tower is
hit, a woman who was on her way out of the building is last seen by her
friends as she turns away from a half-empty elevator and heads back to her
upper-story office to retrieve some pictures of her baby. [dwyer
/ nyt.May.26.2002]
=On the Port Authority Police phone line,
different officers give completely different advice on evacuation to callers
from the towers. When an official from Morgan Stanley calls, he fortunately
happens to get an officer who urges an immediate evacuation. The 2,500 Morgan
Stanley employees who occupy 22 floors of the South Tower are soon heading
down the stairs to safety. [dwyer /
workkn.Dec.17.2001]
=The evacuation of the South Tower was finally
ordered just before 0900 AM, nearly simultaneously by the fire chiefs and by
the Port Authority Police. These instructions may not have reached officials
in the South Tower before the second plane hit.
[911cm / dwyer]
==0855 AM > President Bush’s motorcade
arrives for a scheduled appearance at Booker Elementary School in Sarasota,
Florida. Bush learns that a plane has hit the North Tower either immediately
upon his arrival at the school or just before. He assumes that the crash was
an accident, briefly confers by phone with National Security Adviser Rice and
then goes ahead with his planned visit to a second grade classroom, which he
enters just after 0900 AM. [sarm.Sep.19.2001
/ ap.Nov.26.2001 / sarht.Sep.10.2002]
==0857 AM > Firefighter scouts begin climbing
the stairs of the North Tower, followed 10 minutes later by heavily equipped
fire companies. By about 0900 AM, the Chiefs of Department for the Fire
Department, the NYPD, and the Port Authority Police are on the scene, and
hundreds of firefighters, police, and other emergency personnel have arrived
or are on the way. (See 0915 AM) FDNY officials have virtually no information
about conditions near or above the impact zone, but they quickly decide that
it’s impossible to fight a fire of this magnitude and they instead
concentrate on rescue operations. They are well aware that the situation is
highly dangerous. One chief later said "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, and we had to try to rescue
them." There is talk of a possible eventual partial collapse of the
upper floors, though this is not seen as imminent. No one imagines that there
could be a full collapse. [911cm / dwyer]
==0858 AM > A police helicopter determines
that it’s impossible to land on the smoke-shrouded roof of the North Tower. A
pilot who later tries to hover directly over the building reports that the
intense heat would destabilize any helicopter that attempted to approach the
roof. At 0908 AM, NYPD Chief of Department Joseph Esposito orders helicopters
not to try to land on the towers. In any event, New York City has no plans
for large-scale helicopter evacuations. [911cm
/ dwyer]
==0858 AM > Hijacked Flight 175 takes a
heading toward New York City. At about 0900, a man calling his mother from
the plane says passengers are considering storming the cockpit. Another
passenger making a last call to his father says "I don't think the pilot
is flying the plane - I think we are going down - I think they intend to…fly
into a building - Don’t worry, Dad - If it happens, it'll be very
fast." [911cm]
==0900 AM > American Airlines stops all
take-offs in the northeast US. [911cm]
==0901 AM > Around this time, about 25
people trapped on the 89th floor of the North Tower are freed by an impromptu
rescue crew led by Port Authority employees Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz.
The crew works its way through the floors beneath the impact zone, saving the
lives of at least 70 people before the tower collapses. De Martini and Ortiz
do not survive. [dwyer]
==0901 AM > Desperately trying to alert FAA
leadership that multiple hijackings are underway, a New York manager tells
the FAA’s Herndon Command Center "We have several situations going on
here. It's escalating big, big time." [911cm]
==0901 AM, approximately > Air traffic
controllers on Long Island tracking an unidentified plane - Flight 175 -
approaching from the southwest suddenly grasp that it's not heading for an
airport. A controller who realizes what's about to happen shouts
"Oh, my God! He's headed for the city! Oh, my God! He's headed for
Manhattan!" [wap.Sep.21.2001]
==0902 AM > A few seconds before the South
Tower is hit, an announcement is made over the building's public address
system: "If the conditions warrant on your floor, you may wish to begin
an orderly evacuation." [dwyer]
=Minutes before, Stanley Praimnath of Fuji
Bank and several bank executives had been turned back by a security guard in
the ground floor lobby as they tried to leave the South Tower. Now back
at his desk on the 81st floor, Praimnath is talking on the phone when he
glances out the window and sees an airliner, close-in and heading directly
toward him. He screams and dives under his desk just as the nose of
Flight 175 crashes into the 81st floor 130 feet
away. [nyt.May.26.2002 / dwyer]
Flight 175, an instant before it
impacts the South Tower
==0902:59 AM > United Flight 175 hits
the South Tower of the World Trade Center. It is at this point that
it becomes clear that the disaster is an unfolding terrorist attack rather
than a freak aviation accident. A week later, Martin Amis writes in the
Guardian "That second plane looked eagerly alive, and galvanized with
malice, and wholly alien… its glint was the worldflash of a coming
future." As in the first crash, the airliner literally flies into the
Tower - "it's like the building swallowed up the plane," said one
eyewitness. The plane strikes the south face of floors 77 to 85, hitting its
target about 100 mph faster and at more of an angle than Flight 11. The
second plane’s higher impact speed is likely to have inflicted greater damage
on the South Tower’s central support beams; it also causes much of the fuel
to spray outside and explode in immense fireballs. A man driving north out of
the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel sees the SUV in front of him get hit by one of
the plane’s enormous landing wheels. About 200 people are killed when the
plane hits the South Tower; around 400 are trapped in the upper floors.
[dwyer / 911cm / gdn.Sep.18.2001 /
nyt.May.26.2002+Sep.16.2001 / peop.Sep.12.2001]
=There are probably well over a hundred people
milling around the elevators at the 78th floor sky lobby when a violent
explosion blasts through, shattering the walls and the elevators, hurling
fragments of glass and debris, and engulfing the large room in searing heat
and smoke. Most of those present are killed instantly; there are perhaps two
or three dozen people left alive in the ruins of the lobby, many of them
horribly injured, with another 18 sealed in an elevator. Around 0920 AM, an
energetic young man - apparently equities trader and volunteer fireman Welles
Crowther - appears in this hellish setting and begins rescue operations, at
least twice guiding groups of walking wounded down the stairs toward safety.
Fourteen survivors of the carnage on the 78th floor manage to escape the
South Tower. Crowther stays in the building till the end; months later his
remains are found in the wreckage of the ground floor lobby with several
firefighters. [nyt.May.26.2002 / ust.Sep.03.2002
/ dwyer]
=One damaged stairwell remains open from the
upper floors through the impact zone for at least half an hour. Stanley
Praimnath is rescued from the wreckage of the 81st floor by a Euro Brokers
executive from the 84th floor, and they make their way down the stairs to safety.
Two other survivors from the 84th floor - the upper part of the impact zone -
also get out this way. It's not known if Welles Crowther (see above) came
downstairs from his office on the 104th floor before the crash, or if he
managed to make his way through the impact zone afterwards. There's no
indication that anyone else on the upper floors was aware of the escape
route. [911cm / dwyer /
ust.Sep.06.2002]
=After the South Tower is hit, the 80 elevator
mechanics on duty at the twin towers leave - 'on their own initiative,' as
one article put it. Since they are needed to open some of the locking
devices, the mechanics' departure means that many of the people stranded in
elevators are almost impossible to rescue. [ust.Sep.04.2002]
=Flight 175’s crash is witnessed by thousands
of observers who have been watching the burning North Tower. Bystanders panic
and flee, but within a few minutes crowds again begin to gather in the area,
silently gaping at the unfolding catastrophe despite warnings from the
police. [nyt.Sep.12.2001]
==0903 AM > The FAA notifies
NORAD that Flight 175 has been hijacked, at about the same time that Flight
175 is crashing into the South Tower. [911cm]
==0903-1100 AM, approximately > The
height of confusion and chaos on 9/11 occurs in the two hours or so after
the South Tower is hit.
==0904 AM > The FAA stops all departures
from airports in New England and eastern New
York. [faa]
Bush is informed of the second crash
==0905 AM > Visiting an elementary school
classroom in Florida, President Bush learns of the second crash when
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card very briefly whispers in the
president’s ear that a second plane has struck the World Trade Center and
that "America's under attack." Bush does not respond, but instead
sits silently for several seconds with a concerned expression, and then has
the children go ahead with their planned reading exercise. He remains
in the classroom for about eight minutes or more, listening to a story about
a pet goat and then complimenting the students on their reading skills and
urging them to be good citizens. The Secret Service makes no attempt to
hustle Bush out of the school. [nyt.Sep.16.2001
/ tamt.Sep.01.2002 / gl&m.Sep.12.2001]
==0906-0908 AM > The FAA halts all takeoffs
for flights going to or through New York airspace. At 0906 AM, the FAA
notifies all air traffic controllers nationwide that Flight 11 had been
hijacked. Also at about this time, American Airlines stops all takeoffs,
nationwide. United Airlines soon does the same. An American
executive describes the mood in corporate headquarters as the order is given:
"I never sensed any fear or panic. We were too shell-shocked." A
few minutes later, both airlines order all planes in flight to land at the
nearest available airport. [faa /
nwd.Sep.23.2001 / 911cm / wsj.Oct.15.2001]
==0907 AM > FAA controllers in Boston urge
the FAA’s Herndon Command Center to alert pilots to secure their
cockpits. Herndon evidently ignores the request. [911cm]
==0910 AM > Around this time, NORAD is
frantically trying to arm and scramble all available fighters, while its
radar technicians are desperately searching for possible hijacked aircraft
among thousands of radar images and its phones are jammed with calls from
military commanders and political leaders. Temporarily, there is
considerable confusion. Not until after about 1100 AM is there a fairly ample
number of fighters in the air. [avw.Jun.03.2002]
==0910 AM, approximately > By about this
time, major online news sites are becoming inaccessible due to the massive
surge in viewer traffic. See News
Coverage/Communication [dmu.Sep.11.2001
/ fark.Sep.11.2001]
==0912 AM > A passenger on Flight 77 calls
her mother, warning that the plane has been hijacked. The passenger’s parents
quickly notify American Airlines. Some minutes later, conservative
commentator Barbara Olson places two calls to her husband Ted - the Solicitor
General - from Flight 77. Ted Olson unsuccessfully tries to contact
Attorney General Ashcroft. [911cm]
==0912 AM > Office papers from the damaged
towers are already reported to be drifting over Brooklyn.
[bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==0915 AM, approximately > More than 1,000
firefighters from over 225 units and more than 100 fire trucks respond to the
alarms at the World Trade Center. In fact, the number of firefighters
arriving at the site is far greater than the chiefs at the scene had
requested, to the point where parking becomes difficult. By about 0915 AM
there are command posts in each of the Twin Tower lobbies, a third in the
lobby of the neighboring Marriott Hotel, and a fourth on nearby West Street.
The Fire Department is already having trouble communicating with companies
climbing the stairs, especially in the North Tower. Coordination between the
NYPD and the FDNY is extremely poor - one source says "They did not
bicker; they simply did not communicate." [dwyer /
inside / 911cm / nyt.May.26.2002 / pbs]
=Many survivors above the impact zones in both
towers unsuccessfully try to get to the roofs. In the South Tower about 200
people climb to the uppermost floors, only to find that the doors to the roof
are locked. [nyt.May.26.2002 / dwyer]
==0916 AM > There are reports of cell phone
outages in New York City from about this time. [freerep.Sep.11.2001]
==0918 AM, approximately > Reports are
circulating that the New York Stock Exchange is being evacuated. The Stock
Exchange normally begins trading at 0930 AM, but the attacks on the World
Trade Center have thrown the nearby financial district into confusion. The
NYSE's communications system is later badly disrupted by the collapse of the
towers. See 0425 PM [freerep.Sep.11.2001 /
dowjbn.Sep.11.2001 / ap.Sep.11.2001]
==0918 AM > The United Nations is being
evacuated. [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==0919 AM > Acting on his own initiative, a
United flight dispatcher begins broadcasting warnings to his flights to
beware of cockpit intrusions. One of his planes is Flight 93, which
receives the warning at 0924, four minutes before they are attacked.
[911cm]
==0920 AM > At FBI headquarters in
Washington, a hastily assembled team of 250 agents begins investigating the
9/11 attacks. Examining the passenger lists of the hijacked flights,
the FBI links some of names with al-Qaeda in less than an hour, and soon
notices that several Arabs on the lists - including Mohamed Atta - had
recently lived in Germany. See 110 PM. [inside
/ clarke]
==0921 AM > In the prevailing confusion,
the FAA erroneously informs NORAD that Flight 11 did not crash into the North
Tower, but is still in the air and heading toward Washington. Responding to
this false report (and still unaware of the approaching threat of Flight 77),
NORAD orders Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to scramble fighters at 0924.
No attempt is made to alert or evacuate possible targets in Washington,
including the Pentagon. See 0930 [911cm
/ cnn.Sep.17.2001]
==0921 AM > The Port Authority closes all
bridges and tunnels in the New York area. [cnn.Sep.12.2001]
==0923 AM > Caught in Windows on the World
in the North Tower, Bill Kelly uses his Blackberry to e-mail his supervisor:
"We're trapped on 106th flr. But apparently fire dept is almost
here." [nyt.May.26.2002]
==0925 AM > The heads or acting heads of
key federal departments begin an emergency video conference, coordinating the
government’s immediate response to the attacks. Chaired by
counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke in the White House Situation Room, it’s
fully underway by 0940 when the CIA and the FAA join in, but at first there
is no contact with the military. The tense conference continues throughout
the day and into the night. Initially, there are fears that there will be
multiple attacks, at home and abroad. [clarke /
911cm]
==0925 AM > The two fighters from Otis Air
Base arrive over New York City. [911cm]
==0926 AM > The FAA halts departures of
all aircraft nationwide - civilian, military, and law enforcement - with
a few special exceptions. The momentous decision to call an unplanned
national ground stop - the first in American history - is made by FAA
national operations manager Ben Sliney, who also makes the decision to shut
down all air traffic at 0945. September 11 is Sliney’s first day on the
job. [faa / time.Sep.14.2001 /
ust.Aug.13.2002]
==0928 AM > Just as United Airlines is
ordering its planes out of the air, Flight 93 is hijacked over eastern
Ohio, evidently by a sudden attack on the cockpit. Cleveland air traffic
controllers hear calls of "Mayday," scuffling, shouts, and screams
in transmissions from the cockpit. Within minutes, a hijacker is heard over
the radio telling passengers to remain calm. During the takeover, both pilots
are murdered as well as at least one passenger. Passengers soon begin
reporting the hijacking in dozens of cell phone calls - and from these calls
they learn the fates of the other hijacked planes.
[msnbc.Jul.30.2002+Sep.03.2002 / 911cm / obs.Dec.02.2001]
==0928 AM > False reports that a third
hijacked airliner is approaching New York City briefly disrupt the rescue
efforts at the World Trade Center. The approaching plane proves to be a
military aircraft. [dwyer]
==0929 AM > A high-level military
teleconference is underway. The conference call lasts for eight hours and at
different times involves the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of
Defense, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Deputy National
Security Adviser. But the conferees are initially unable to reach FAA
Headquarters. [911cm]
==0930 AM, approximately > The FAA’s
command center is compiling a list of planes suspected of having been
hijacked, which will include seven untouched planes in addition to the four
genuine hijack victims. Until about 1100 AM, FAA managers are facing
the nightmarish prospect of a long series of hijacked flights, which might
have to be shot down. [ust.Aug.13.2002]
==0930 AM, approximately > The upper floors
of the North Tower are becoming thoroughly choked with smoke, and fires are
breaking out in the stairwells. The number of phone calls from the upper
floors of the towers is dwindling. [nyt.May.26.2002]
=Below the impact zones, the evacuations of
the twin towers are winding down by this time. The North Tower has largely
been cleared, and only a few hundred office workers are still making their
way out of the South Tower. In 1993, full building evacuations of the towers
took ten hours; in 2001, the improvised evacuations are nearly completed in
less than an hour. Firefighters are climbing through the lower floors of the
North Tower. Their ascent into the South Tower is greatly speeded up after
0918 AM, when they find a functioning elevator that operates up to the 40th
floor. [dwyer]
==0930 AM > The Empire State Building is
shut down. The Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art are also closed about this
time. [nyt.Sep.12.2001]
==0930 AM > Still at Booker Elementary in
Sarasota, Bush makes his first public statement on the 9/11 attacks. Saying
that he will return directly to Washington, he briefly announces that there
has been "an apparent terrorist attack on our country," and vows
"to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those
folks who committed this act." [ap.Sep.11.2001
/ wap.Sep.13.2001]
==0930 AM > The Director of the Secret
Service urges that President Bush be prevented from immediately returning to
the capital. Richard Clarke passes the request on to Cheney and Rice by about
0940 AM, and also asks that the Air Force be given authorization to shoot
down threatening aircraft. Soon afterwards, Clarke requests combat air
patrols over every major American city. [clarke]
==0930 AM > Two F-16s take off from Langley
Air Force Base in Virginia. They are ordered north toward Baltimore to
intercept the non-existent hijacked flight that is reportedly approaching the
capital from the north, (see 0921 AM) but in the confusion they wind up going
east over the ocean. Langley is 130 miles from Washington; Andrews AFB
is only 15 miles away, but has no planes on alert status. See
0936 [911cm / gdn.Sep.17.2001]
==0932 AM > Air traffic controllers at
Washington’s Dulles Airport detect a fast-moving unidentified aircraft
approaching the capital from the west - which proves to be the missing Flight
77. The Secret Service is notified at 0933. [911cm]
==0933 AM > At the Pentagon, a man
watching news reports of the World Trade Center attack tells bystanders
"You know, the next best target would be us."
[wap.Sep.12.2001]
==0934 AM > FAA headquarters is notified of
the hijacking of Flight 93. [911cm]
==0936 AM > Only now does the FAA notify
NORAD that an unidentified aircraft (Flight 77) is closing in on
Washington. The two F-16s from Langley that have been mistakenly flying
east are urgently ordered back to capital, but they are still about 150 miles
away when the Pentagon is hit. [911cm]
==0936 AM > Two Secret Service agents
literally pick up Vice-President Cheney by his arms and drag him into the
Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) bunker under the White House.
Condoleezza Rice, Scooter Libby, Karen Hughes, and other administration
officials also take refuge in the PEOC. They have difficulty participating in
Richard Clarke’s ongoing emergency video conference, since Cheney's wife
keeps turning down the volume so she can listen to
CNN. [911cm / nyt.Oct.16.2001 /
wap.Jan.27.2002 / clarke]
==0936 AM > Around Cleveland, Flight 93
veers off course and begins heading back toward Washington. Its intended
target is most likely the US Capitol, or less probably the White
House. [msnbc.Sep.03.2002 / gdn.Sep.09.2002]
The Pentagon on fire
==0937:46 AM > After smoothly executing a
360-degree turn over the Potomac, American Flight 77 crashes into the
Pentagon, coming in very low, hitting the west face at 530 miles per
hour, and piercing three of the building’s five concentric rings. The plane
hits an area of Army and Navy offices that had recently been renovated and
strengthened, and is still only partly occupied. 125 Pentagon workers are
killed, in addition to the 64 passengers on the plane, although some early
reports estimate as many as 800 fatalities. [911cm
/ cbs.Sep.21.2001 / csm.Sep.17.2001 / wap.Sep.12.2001 / bbc.Sep.14.2001]
==0940 AM > A caller trapped in the upper
stories of the South Tower reports that the floors are
buckling. [nyt.May.26.2002]
==0941 AM > Confused about which plane
transmitted the sounds of struggle that actually came from Flight 93, the FAA
warns NORAD that Delta Flight 1989 (Boston to Los Angeles) may have been
hijacked. This is the first of many false hijacking reports. After Flight
1989 lands in Cleveland at 1010 AM, it's quarantined for several hours until
anxious security personnel determine that there are no terrorists or bombs
aboard. [911cm / ust.2002.08.13]
==0942 AM, approximately > False reports
begin to appear that Palestinian terrorist groups are claiming credit for the
attacks. The Palestinian groups promptly and emphatically deny that they are
responsible. [fark.Sep.11.2001 /
dmu.Sep.11.2001 / ottc.Sep.11.2001]
==0943 AM > The White House is evacuated.
The initially orderly evacuation dissolves into panic as Secret Service
agents begin screaming at people to run. Women are told to take off their
shoes to run faster; staffers are told to pull off their White House id
badges to avoid being targeted by imaginary al-Qaeda snipers. A White House
guard is heard shouting "Incoming, incoming, get out of here!"
"The fear on these guys' faces was unbelievable," said one
onlooker. Soon, the only people left around the building are Cheney, Rice,
and other officials who’ve withdrawn to the safety of the White House bomb
shelter (the PEOC) and a small group with Richard Clarke in the unprotected
Situation Room, who refuse to evacuate. Otherwise the White House is empty -
even the internal guard posts are abandoned. Calls made to the White House
switchboard connect to a recording asking callers to hold for an operator,
after which the line goes dead. [wap.Sep.12.2001+Jan.27.2002
/ nyt.Sep.12+Sep.17.2001 / bro&c.Aug.26.2002 / clarke]
=At about the same time, very shortly after
the Pentagon crash, the House Sergeant-at-Arms orders the immediate evacuation
of the Capitol Building. Some members of Congress huddle under
trees in a park across from Senate office
buildings. [csm.Sep.17.2001]
==0945 AM > Calling his wife by cell phone
from Flight 93, Tom Burnett says that he and a group of passengers are
planning to take action against the hijackers. Soon afterward, the men
on board vote to retake the plane. [longm /
torsu.Sep.16.2001]
==0945 AM > The FAA shuts down all US
commercial air traffic, and the nearly 4,000 planes in the air - almost a
third of all airliners in the world - are soon landed at the nearest
available airports. In the next 15 minutes, controllers reroute over 1,100
flights; in the next hour, 75% of all planes in the air are landed. Costs
associated with this immense disruption of service deal a very heavy blow to
the already ailing airline industry. [faa /
bog.Aug.12.2002 / ust.Aug.13.2002]
==0945 AM > By about this time Chicago's
Sears Tower - the tallest building in America - is being
evacuated. [fark.Sep.11.2001 /
freerep.Sep.11.2001 / dmu.Sep.11.2001]
==0945 AM > There are false news reports of
a fire on the Washington Mall. [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==0946 AM > There are false news reports
that the USA Today Building in Washington is on
fire. [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==0949 AM > NORAD orders all combat
aircraft to battle stations, fully armed. [911cm]
==0949 AM > The two F-16s scrambled from
Langley arrive over Washington, reinforced an hour later by three fighters
from Andrews AFB. The planes from Andrews have little or no ammunition,
but all three pilots later state that if necessary they were prepared to ram
an incoming aircraft. [avw.Jun.03+Sep.09.2002
/ cnn.Sep.17.2001]
==0949 AM > With Flight 93 an estimated 26
minutes from Washington, the FAA has still not asked NORAD for military
assistance against the approaching plane. At 0949, the following exchange
takes place:
FAA Command Center: Uh, do we want to
think, uh, about scrambling aircraft?
FAA Headquarters: Oh, God, I don’t
know.
FAA Command Center: Uh, that’s a
decision somebody’s gonna have to make probably in the next ten minutes.
FAA Headquarters: Uh, ya know everybody
just left the room.
The FAA never does inform NORAD about Flight 93. [911cm]
==0950 AM, approximately > George Tenet
orders the evacuation of CIA Headquarters. Only the Global Response Center,
which monitors intelligence on terrorism, remains in the
building. [woodw1]
==0950 AM > At about this time, a Buildings
Department engineer on the scene reports that the twin towers appear to be in
imminent danger of total collapse. This assessment - the first clear
warning that the towers could fall - reaches the FDNY Chief of Department
seconds before the South Tower collapses. [911cm
/ dwyer]
=At the South Tower, the intensifying fires on
the 80th floor are melting pieces of Flight 175, and molten aluminum is
dribbling down the outside of the building. The 83rd floor appears to be
progressively drooping onto the 82nd. In a final phone call about this time,
a man trapped on the burning 80th floor tells a friend "It don't look
too good, Bobby Mac." [dwyer]
==0951 or 0952 AM > After a grueling climb
up the South Tower stairwells, Fire Chief Orio Palmer reaches the devastated
78th floor sky lobby, at the lower edge of the impact zone. A few of Palmer's
men venture as high as the 79th floor. Firefighters are trying to free 18
people trapped in an elevator in the sky lobby when the building collapses at
0958 AM. [911cm / dwyer]
==0953 AM > The NSA intercepts a phone call
from an al-Qaeda operative concerning the 9/11 attacks, indicating that he
knew a fourth plane was to be hijacked. This intercept soon draws
Rumsfeld’s attention. See 0240 PM [cbs.Sep.04.2002]
==0954 AM > Air Force One departs from
Sarasota, evidently without a fighter escort for over an hour. The Secret
Service, Vice President Cheney, and Chief of Staff Card advise Bush not to
return to Washington, but the issue is still undecided and the plane takes
off with no fixed destination, circling around Sarasota for almost an hour.
See 1032 AM [0911cm / clarke /
csm.Sep.17.2001]
==0955 AM > Richard Clarke activates the
Continuity of Government program, which provides for the evacuation of key
government officials to safe sites. See 1000 AM.
[clarke]
==0956 AM > Greg Milanowycz, who’s been
calling his father’s office from the 93rd floor of the South Tower, says
"The ceiling is caving. The ceiling is caving." Then the
connection is broken. [nyt.May.26.2002 /
dwyer]
==0957 AM > A portion of the Pentagon
collapses. [911cm]
==0957 AM > Passengers on Flight 93
attack the hijackers. The hijackers try to knock the attackers off
balance by flying erratically, but the passengers keep up a sustained assault
on the cockpit. See 1003 AM [911cm]
==0958 AM, approximately > By now, nearly
all the civilians who were able to leave the South Tower have done so,
although above the 50th floor there are still some badly injured survivors
from the sky lobby straggling downstairs. Probably somewhat less than 100
firefighters are in the building, spread out from the lobby up to the impact
zone. [911cm / dwyer / nyt.Jul.07.2002]
The South Tower’s dust cloud
==0958:59 AM > The South Tower of the
World Trade Center collapses, killing everyone in the building as well as
a number of people on the concourse, in the Marriott, and on neighboring
streets. There is a sudden ear-splitting noise. "First, a sharp crack
and then what sounded, oddly, like a waterfall, thousands of panes of glass
shattering as the north side of the tower buckled," recalled a reporter.
The tower seems to list, and then begins to come down, exploding floor by
floor and obscuring itself in dust with "a slow, building rumble like
rolling thunder that will not stop as the tower cascades toward the
ground." "It felt for a moment as if the entire city was
going to crumple into the ocean," wrote one witness. Standing at the
foot of the tower, brokerage executive Howard Lutnick describes it as
"the loudest thing I had ever heard - like a jet engine right in my
ear." Watching from Brooklyn, novelist John Updike says "It sank
down as if somebody had yanked it." The building falls in ten seconds,
hitting the ground at nearly the speed of free-fall. The more than 200,000
cubic yards of concrete in the structure are pulverized by the force of the
collapse and explode outward in a gigantic cloud of silicate dust, as
bystanders desperately flee. An AP reporter on the scene wrote "Windows
shattered. People were screaming and diving for cover. People walked around
like ghosts, covered in dirt, weeping and wandering dazed." As the smoke
dissipates and it can be seen that the tower has vanished, an elderly woman
gasps "It can't be. It just can't be. Where did it go? Oh, lord, where
did it go?" A man approaches the immense pile of rubble and calls out
''Is anyone there? Show me an arm. Show me an arm.'' There is no response.
[911cm / nyt.Sep.12+Sep.15+Sep.16.2001 / wire.Sep.11.2001 /
bbc.Sep.14.2001 / inside / wap.Sep.14.2001 / ap.Sep.11.2001]
=The Marriott Hotel, adjacent to the South
Tower, is nearly cut in two by the collapse and at least 40 firefighters are
killed or trapped there. The lobby area of the North Tower is also badly
damaged. The North Tower shakes violently, but almost no one inside it
realizes that the other tower has fallen. The collapse of the South Tower
forces officials to abandon command posts in the North Tower lobby, the
Marriott, and the nearby streets, temporarily throwing rescue operations into
confusion. [dwyer /
911cm]
=Mayor Giuliani and some of his aides are
nearly trapped by the collapse of the South Tower when the nearby office
building they’re in is damaged and fills with smoke. They escape
through the basement and a network of tunnels. A few minutes later they
are forced to run from the immense dust cloud released by the collapse of the
North Tower. [nyt.Sep.14.2001]
South Manhattan, late morning of September 11
==1000 AM > Rescue personnel are moving up
through the eerily deserted middle floors of the North Tower, some as high as
the 54th floor. [dwyer / 911cm]
=Despite the chaos caused by the fall of the
South Tower, within a minute Fire Chief Pfeiffer manages to broadcast orders
to immediately evacuate the North Tower, though he still doesn't know the
other tower has fallen. Some of the firefighters hear the commands and turn
back - one chief on the 35th floor uses a bullhorn to shout into stairwells:
"All FDNY, get the fuck out!" But many firefighters in the building
never hear the evacuation orders, and many of those who are aware of them
don’t know that the South Tower has collapsed and feel no sense of
urgency. See 1015 AM [911cm / dwyer]
==1000 AM, approximately > Speaker of the
House Hastert - second in line in presidential succession - is evacuated from
Washington and flown to a fortified redoubt in Virginia. Evacuation of
key federal personnel is generally haphazard. See
midday [wap.Sep.13.2001]
==1000 AM > There are false reports of a
fire at the State Department - original source
unknown. [ottc.Sep.11.2001]
==1003:11 AM > Flight 93 crashes in
rural Pennsylvania, near Shanksville, after witnesses observe it flying
erratically at high speed. Evidently, the frantic hijackers deliberately
crashed the plane just as the passengers were about to break into the
cockpit. Horrified personnel at the United Airlines crisis center
"watched it until the end of the radar track ... and then, poof.
We didn't have time to cry." News reports of the crash begin circulating
about a half hour later. [911cm /
wsj.Oct.15.2001]
=Since the fighters patrolling over Washington
at this time had no shootdown orders (see 1010-1015), it is likely that
Flight 93 would have hit its intended target - probably the Capitol Building
- if it hadn't been brought down by the passenger
revolt. [911cm]
==1006 AM > Secret Service agents armed
with automatic weapons are patrolling Lafayette Park across from the White
House. [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==1006 AM > There are several erroneous
news reports that there was another explosion prior to the collapse of the
South Tower, or that another plane crashed into the base of the
tower. [dmu.Sep.11.2001 / fark.Sep.11.2001 /
freerep.Sep.11.2001]
==1007 AM > Capitol police order a
mandatory evacuation of all House and Senate office
buildings. [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==1007-1008 AM > NYPD helicopter pilots
report that the North Tower is "glowing red" in the impact zone and
that collapse appears "inevitable." The reports are transmitted to
police, but Fire Department radios can't pick up police
transmissions. [dwyer]
==1010-1015 AM > During this time frame
Cheney orders the Air Force to shoot down Flight 93, unaware that the plane
has already crashed. Cheney later claimed that he had gotten Bush's consent
for the order about five minutes earlier, but 911 Commission investigators
reportedly concluded that the Vice President acted without authorization.
Unknown to Cheney, his shootdown order is inoperative since he didn’t send it
through the regular chain of command. The order generates a great deal of
confusion and is not communicated to the pilots patrolling over New York and
Washington until later, if at all. [911cm /
nwwk.Feb.27.2006]
==1010 AM, approximately > The Coast Guard
closes all harbors in the United States. [clarke]
==1012 AM > False reports from CNN of an
explosion on Capitol Hill. The story is soon
retracted. [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==1015 AM > Minutes before the collapse of
the North Tower, there are as many as 100 firefighters and some civilians
resting on the 19th floor. Emergency personnel retreating down the stairs
repeatedly urge them to evacuate the building, but the men on the 19th floor
seem indifferent to the warnings. Other firefighters, told by police to
evacuate, respond that they don't take orders from cops. Still others refuse
to leave the building while some of their buddies are still inside. In one
case, a group of firefighters who have descended to the lobby turn around and
go back upstairs to help search for FDNY personnel. [nyt.May.26.2002
/ 911cm / dwyer]
==1015 AM > Emergency workers briefly
evacuate the Pentagon crash site in response to reports of an another
hijacked plane approaching Washington - the first of three such false
warnings of approaching planes that occur before noon. [911cm]
==1019 AM > A police helicopter reports
that the top of the North Tower is buckling and
leaning. [dwyer]
==1020 AM, approximately > Chris Young, a
temp from Marsh & McLennan, has been stranded in an elevator on the
ground floor of the North Tower since the first plane crash, oblivious to the
disasters unfolding around him. He manages to free himself after about ninety
minutes, and emerges to find that the clean, bright, busy lobby has been
inexplicably transformed into a ruin that's littered with debris, covered in
several inches of concrete dust, and completely deserted. Shaken and
confused, Young makes his way outside through a shattered window, looks up at
the tower, and sees that the floors where he was working earlier that morning
are now belching fire and smoke. [dwyer /
ust.Sep.04.2002]
==1020 AM > New York City Transit decides
to halt all subway service. Subway station announcements say the closings are
caused by "an incident in Manhattan." Buses are jammed, but
continue to run, and many subway lines resume in the
afternoon. [nyt.Sep.13.2001]
==1021 AM > The FAA orders the diversion of
all inbound international flights, mostly to Canada. But the Canadian
air system is itself soon shut down, and some international flights run
dangerously low on fuel before the Canadians relent and let them
land. [time.Sep.14.2001]
==1022 AM > State Department, Justice
Department, and World Bank offices are evacuated in Washington. Almost
immediately, there are false reports of a car bomb explosion at State. Still
in video conference, Richard Clarke asks Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage if his building has been bombed. Armitage responds “Does it fucking
look like I’ve been bombed, Dick?” [cnn.Sep.12.2001
/ bro&c.Aug.26.2002 / clarke]
==1022 AM > A newscaster on Washington's
WTOP radio reports "A plane went overhead… some sort of jet, maybe it
was a military plane. But everywhere you looked, people were looking up into
the sky with concern and fear on their faces that this might be another
incoming terrorist attack. Just
mind-boggling." [bro&c.Aug.26.2002]
==1023 AM > Fire begins rapidly spreading
in the North Tower, engulfing floors above the impact area. The number of
people jumping from the smoke-filled upper floors is
accelerating. [nyt.May.26.2002]
==1024 AM > About five fire companies reach
the ground floor of the North Tower and stand about in the lobby, uncertain
what to do next. One firefighter who was aware that the South Tower had
already fallen convinces them to leave. Just as they’re walking out the
doors, the North Tower begins to collapse. [911cm]
==1027 AM, approximately > Under the impact
zone, the North Tower has long since been largely evacuated, though some
elderly, injured, or disabled people are still making their way out. A group
of 16 Port Authority employees who were delayed by contradictory advice from
emergency operators are only now descending the stairs. About another two
dozen office workers are still trapped in rooms in the 80s, and others are
probably stuck in stalled elevators. As many as 200 firefighters are still in
the building, as well as other emergency personnel. [911cm
/ dwyer]
==1028:25 AM > The North Tower of the
WTC collapses, largely completing the destruction of the neighboring
22-story Marriott Hotel (3 World Trade Center), and partly wrecking many
surrounding buildings. Another immense dust cloud is released - even
thicker than the first, by some accounts. As the dust dissipates,
bystanders stand numbly staring at the empty space where the towers had been.
The site of the Twin Towers has been transformed into Ground Zero, a 16 acre
debris field with 2 billion pounds or more of rubble, described by a reporter
as a "hellscape" surrounded by knee-deep ash. Even more
firefighters are killed in the fall of the North Tower and the Marriott than
in the South Tower collapse; many of the surviving firefighters on the scene
are dazed, and some are weeping. A firefighter who arrived about this time
remembered "There were body parts everywhere. You couldn't tell the body
parts from the metal." A doctor says "The entire block is incinerated.
It doesn't look like anything you would be able to pull anybody out
of." The New York Times reported "The area around the World
Trade Center resembled a desert after a terrible sandstorm. Parts of
buildings, crushed vehicles and the shoes, purses, umbrellas and baby
carriages of those who fled lay covered with thick, gray ash, through which
weeping people wandered in search of safety, each with a story of pure
horror." A damaged theater near the North Tower is advertising the movie
'Ghost World.' [911cm / dwyer /
nyt.Sep.12+Sep.16.2001 / wap.Sep.12+Sep.14.2001]
A stoplight near Ground Zero
|
