11 September 2001
11 Sep 2001, 11:59 – 11 Sep 2001, 14:2938 items
terrorusaThe morning minute by minute
Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States. — The 9/11 Commission Report, chapter 1
Nineteen hijackers seized four airliners that morning. Two struck the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one the Pentagon outside Washington, and the fourth came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after its passengers fought back. This timeline follows the morning from the first takeoff at 7:59 to the fall of the North Tower at 10:28, mostly in the minutes and seconds the 9/11 Commission reconstructed from radar, radio and cockpit recordings and the calls made from the planes.
By the numbers
2,977 people killed, not counting the 19 hijackers, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum
2,753 of them in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 aboard United 93, by the same count
343 New York City firefighters among the dead
Reading it
Four bands run side by side, one per flight from takeoff to impact, and two more for the time each tower stood burning. Events inside a flight's band happened on board or to that aircraft. Filter by hijackings for the four flights, air traffic control for the FAA controllers who saw it unfold, air defense for NORAD's fighters, command for the President and Vice President, and evacuation and firefighting for the towers.
All times are UTC. The East Coast kept Eastern Daylight Time, four hours behind, so the first impact at 8:46:40 on the Commission's clock shows as 12:46:40 here; the notes give the local time. Flight times follow the 9/11 Commission Report (2004); the collapse times follow NIST's investigation (2005), whose impact times differ from the Commission's by a few seconds.
Items
American 11 stops answering
Betty Ong calls American Airlines
American 11's transponder goes dark
“We have some planes”
Boston Center calls NEADS
United 175 reports a suspicious transmission
Amy Sweeney: “We are flying low”
Fighters scrambled from Otis
American 11 strikes the North Tower
United 175's transponder code changes
The South Tower is told to stay put
Peter Hanson calls his father
American 77 vanishes from radar
United 175 strikes the South Tower
“America is under attack”
Renee May calls her parents
Fighters scrambled from Langley
The FAA stops all departures
“Ed, confirm latest mssg plz”
United 93 is hijacked
The President speaks at the school
A fast, unidentified target nears Washington
The Vice President is moved underground
American 77 strikes the Pentagon
United 93's transponder goes dark
Every aircraft ordered to land
Air Force One leaves Sarasota
The passengers fight back
The Pentagon's damaged section collapses
The South Tower collapses
United 93 crashes near Shanksville
The North Tower collapses