9/11 20th anniversary: How the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks unfolded at Twin Towers, Pentagon

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It was a morning marked with chaos, courage, calamity and ultimately deep loss. When the commercial plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m., it was unclear at first what had just happened in Lower Manhattan.

But it was clear to first responders that people needed help. Cops, firefighters – some had witnessed the surreal moment in the sky – rushed to the World Trade Center complex. Thick black smoke was already pouring out of the burning building.

Elevators were out. Firefighters climbed the stairs of the 110-story tower to figure out what was happening on its upper floors to report back. 911 operators tried to keep people calm as wave after wave of calls rolled in.

It was unthinkable that the skyscraper and its twin, which for so long had been a fixture of the New York City skyline, would completely collapse.

First responders were trying to get a grip on the crisis when another plane struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

At 9:37 a.m., a third plane ripped a hole into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. 

Minutes earlier, four men had hijacked flight 93 and rerouted it from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. – their target was believed to be the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Forced to the back of the plane, passengers and crew called family and friends who told them America was under attack. Understanding what was at stake and that their lives were in peril, they bravely fought to get inside the cockpit. In response, the hijackers downed the plane in a Pennsylvania field.

The South Tower fell at 9:59 a.m. The North buckled at 10:28 a.m.

Nearly 3,000 people died.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 unfolded in 102 minutes.

The war on terror began that October. Seeking to destroy the terrorist network al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, who was behind the attacks, U.S. and British forces bombed Afghanistan where the Taliban had given him sanctuary. Last month, the Taliban regained control of the country amid a mishandled drawdown and a Kabul airport suicide bombing that killed over 170 people including 13 U.S. service members.

More than $4 trillion has been spent for two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – which started in March 2003 until the U.S. withdrawal in December 2011 – that Brown University’s Cost of War project estimates killed at least 433,000 people.

That morning, 19 men boarded four different commercial flights – all slated to cross the country from the East Coast to the West – as part of a coordinated attack.

‘They were planning to hijack these planes and turn them into large guided missiles, loaded with up to 11,400 gallons of jet fuel. By 8:00 a.m. of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, they had defeated all the security layers that America’s civil aviation security system then had in place to prevent a hijacking,’ according to The 9/11 Commission Report, which was released in July 2004.

On American Airlines Flight 11, the hijackers stabbed two flight attendants, used some kind of irritant like pepper spray or mace in first class, and pushed passengers and crew to the back of the plane. They also claimed to have a bomb.

One of the flight attendants, Betty Ong, called the airline’s reservations office in North Carolina and told them what was happening.

‘We are flying low. We are flying very very low. We are flying way too low,’ Ong said, according to the report.

‘Oh my God we are way too low.’

The plane was the first one to be turned into a weapon when it slammed into the North Tower from its 93rd to 99th floors.

United Airlines Flight 175 was the second to be hijacked. Similar tactics to flight 11 were used, according to the report. Crew members were stabbed and the hijackers had mace, knives and claimed to have a bomb.

Passengers and crew also called family and friends to report the hijacking and what was happening. One passenger said they were thinking about storming the cockpit, according to the report.

Peter Hanson called his father Lee and spoke with him twice.

‘It’s getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It’s getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don’t worry, Dad. If it happens, it’ll be very fast. My God, my God.’

The call cut off, according to the report. Lee Hanson turned on the television and saw the second plane hit the South Tower from its 77th to 85th floors.

By the time passengers on the third plane that was hijacked, American Airlines Flight 77, were calling friends and families, the attacks on the Twin Towers were known. Like the other two flights, the hijackers had knives and passengers were moved to the back of the plane.

The flight crashed into the western part of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia across from Washington, D.C.

‘No one at the (Federal Aviation Administration) or the airlines that day had ever dealt with multiple hijackings. Such a plot had never been carried out anywhere in the world in more than 30 years, and never in the United States. As news of the hijackings filtered through the FAA and the airlines, it does not seem to have occurred to their leadership that they needed to alert other aircraft in the air that they too might be at risk,’ according to the report.

The last plane to be overtaken by terrorists was United Airlines Flight 93, which took off late. Unlike the other flights, there were four men – not five – to hijack the plane. The operative who was likely the fifth ‘had been refused entry by a suspicious immigration inspector at Florida’s Orlando International Airport in August,’ according to the report.

And unlike the other flights in which the hijackers started their takeover of the cockpit 30 minutes in, the report noted that on flight 93, it was 46 minutes. Wearing red bandanas, the hijackers had knives and also claimed to have a bomb.

The FBI told the commission ‘they found no trace of explosives at crash sites.’

Passengers and crew were forced to the back of the plane. They started calling those on the ground and learned about the other hijackings and the Twin Towers.

They decided to fight back.

One passenger said they had ‘voted whether to rush the terrorists in an attempt to retake the plane,’ according to the report.

‘At 9:57, the passenger assault began. Several passengers had terminated phone calls with loved ones in order to join the revolt. One of the callers ended her message as follows: “Everyone’s running up to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.”‘

In response, the hijacker flying rolled the plane left and right but the passengers persisted to get into the cockpit. He downed the plane into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

After the Twin Towers collapsed that morning, as soon as it was possible, thousands of NYPD, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, doctors, paramedics, construction workers, volunteers and others started searching for survivors – some accounts have people using their hands to dig. Fires continued to burn and the site was extremely dangerous.

Smoke, dust and debris infiltrated Lower Manhattan and marred the air. Today, some 400,000 people are believed to have been affected by the toxins exposed at the site. The number of people – first responders, volunteers and those who lived, worked or went to school in the area – diagnosed with cancer has increased to 23,710, health officials told the New York Post. This includes 1,510 people who have died, according to the August 21 article.

The bleak reality that there were few survivors gave way to the recovery and cleanup effort at what was once One World Trade Center and Two World Trade Center. Thousands worked what was called the ‘pile’ and searched for remains at Ground Zero.

Heartbreaking missing person posters were soon everywhere near the cordoned-off site. Still today, there are remains that have not been identified.

Many lauded Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his leadership after the attacks and there was a push for the city to regain a semblance of normalcy and show strength, which included reopening Wall Street six days later on September 17. In light of what is now known about the area’s air quality, some of these moves have been criticized.

President George W. Bush was at an elementary school in Florida when the first plane hit the North Tower, which was thought initially to be an accident. When the second plane crashed into the South Tower, it was clear that the United States was under attack. For the first time, all commercial flights were grounded nationwide. Bush was soon on Air Force One. He addressed the nation that night and stated, ‘We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.’

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been in Afghanistan since 1996. Born in Saudi Arabia to a wealthy construction magnate, bin Laden had first been in the country to join those fighting the Soviet Union, which invaded Afghanistan in late 1979 to prop up the pro-communist government. Throughout the 1980s, the United States funded those who fought against the Soviets.

In 1988, bin Laden and others started al Qaeda.

The Soviet Union withdrew in February 1989 and by the end of 1991, it collapsed. Into this power vacuum stepped the Taliban, who had control of Kabul by 1996. Under their rule, men had to have beards and women had to be completely covered if in public. Art was destroyed and music was banned with the exception of religious chants and songs. 

‘Convicted thieves had their hands cut off. Murderers were publicly executed. The punishments and the trials were carried out publicly in a stadium filled with thousands — barbaric scenes that still generate fear,’ Kathy Gannon, an AP journalist who has covered the country for 30 years, wrote.

In the 1990s, the CIA described bin Laden as an ‘extremist financier,’ according to The 9/11 Commission Report. The same year he was back in Afghanistan after being kicked out of Sudan – 1996 – the agency was putting together a unit to focus on him, according to the report. By 1997, the agency realized that bin Laden was more than a moneyman and in the years leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks, it had put together capture plans for bin Laden, according to the report. The Clinton administration tried to get the Taliban to turn him over. 

The report details that the Bush administration was warned that bin Laden was planning an attack. Bush’s daily brief on August 6, 2001 included ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,’ according to the report.

After the attacks, the Taliban again refused to hand over bin Laden. On October 7, 2001, the U.S. with British support bombed al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan for part of what was called Operation Enduring Freedom.

That October, Congress passed what is known as the Patriot Act, which, among many other things, increased law enforcement’s ability to surveil as well as penalties for terrorism. It is officially called the USA PATRIOT Act, which stands for United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. Parts of the law are permanent, others have been reauthorized by Congress, Bush and President Barack Obama.

In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked NSA documents to journalists that revealed the scope of the government’s mass surveillance of U.S. citizens and residents by using a section of the Patriot Act. The law remains controversial to this day.

In the months following the attacks, the Office of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, known as the TSA, were also established. The Department of Homeland was officially founded in November 2002.

By the end of 2001, Taliban rule was over and Hamid Karzai became the leader of interim government, then president. He served in that role until September 2014.

In his State of Union address in January 2002, Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea the ‘axis of evil.’ The case was then made that Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. On March 20, 2003, the U.S. began its airstrike campaign and by April, it had control of Baghdad. On May 1, 2003, Bush declared ‘Mission Accomplished.’ Fighting continued until August 31, 2010 when combat operations officially ended. The U.S. withdrew its troops in December 2011.

Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, tried and hanged in December 2006.

Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May 2011.

The cleanup of Ground Zero, which remained dangerous, was officially completed on May 30, 2002. It took 100 days for the fires to stop burning after the attacks.

The World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings. When the Twin Towers collapsed, the Marriott Hotel – 3 World Trade Center – also fell. Later that day, 7 World Trade Center collapsed. The complex’s other buildings – 4 WTC, 5 WTC and 6 WTC – were damaged during the attacks and demolished.

Debate over how to redevelop the 16-acre site was fierce and continues to this day. Memorial pools in the footprints of the towers to honor those who died on September 11 and in the underground bombing from February 26, 1993 opened in 2011. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum opened in May 2014 with One World Trade Center opening that November.