Events of That Day

7:59 A.M. American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 92 people on board, departs Boston's Logan International Airport bound for Los Angeles International Airport..

8:14 A.M. United Airlines Flight 175, another fully fueled Boeing 767, carrying 56 passengers and nine crew members, departs from Boston Logan airport, also bound for Los Angeles. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:20 A.M. American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 with 58 passengers and six crew members, departs from Washington Dulles International Airport in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia, for Los Angeles. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:40 A.M. The FAA notifies NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector of the suspected hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11.

8:42 A.M. United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 44 people on board, departs from Newark International Airport bound for San Francisco International Airport.

8:43 A.M. The FAA notifies NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector of the suspected hijacking of United Airlines Flight 175.

8:45 A.M. Flight 11 crashes at roughly 466 mph (790 km/h or 219m/s or 425 knots) into the north face of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, between floors 93 and 99.

8:46 A.M. Jet fighters are scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Fallmouth, Massachusetts.

8:48 to 10:28 A.M. People, primarily in the North Tower, trapped by fire and smoke in the upper floors, jump to their deaths. One person at street level, firefighter Daniel Suhr, is hit by a jumper and dies.

9:02 A.M. Evacuation is ordered by New York Fire Departments Battalion Chief Joseph Pfeifer (North Tower). An announcement is made over the PA system to evacuate the buildings.

9:03: A.M. Flight 175 crashes at about 590 mph (950 km/h) into the south face of the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center, banked between floors 77 and 85.

9:24 A.M. The FAA notifies NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector of the suspected hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77.

9:28 A.M. Hijackers storm the cockpit on Flight 93 and take over the flight. The entry of the hijackers is overheard by flight controllers at Cleveland.

9:31 A.M. President George W. Bush makes a statement from Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida calling the crashes an "apparent terrorist attack."

9:33 A.M. Tower supervisor at Reagan National Airport tells Secret Service operations center at the White House that "an aircraft is coming at you and not talking with us," referring to Flight 77. The White House is about to be evacuated when the tower reports that Flight 77 has turned and is approaching Reagan National Airport.

9:35 A.M. Based on a report that Flight 77 had turned again and was circling back toward the District of Columbia, the Secret Service orders the immediate evacuation of the Vice President from the White House.

9:37 A.M. Flight 77 crashes into the western side of the Pentagon 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.

9:45 A.M. An operator receives a cell phone call from a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, who reports that the flight has been hijacked and that the passengers are going to fight back.

9:50 A.M. The Associated Press reports that Flight 11 was apparently hijacked after departure from Boston's Logan Airport. Within an hour this is confirmed for both Flight 11 and Flight 175.

9:52 A.M. The National Security Agency intercepts a phone call between a known associate of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and someone in the Republic of Georgia, announcing that he had heard "good news", and that another target was still to be hit.

9:59 A.M. The South Tower of the World Trade Center begins to collapse, 56 minutes and 2 seconds after the impact of Flight 175. As the roar of the collapse goes silent, tremendous gray-white clouds of pulverized concrete and gypsum rush through the streets. Most observers think a new explosion or impact has produced smoke and debris that now obscures the South Tower, but once the wind clears the smoke it becomes clear that the building is no longer there.

10:01 A.M. The FAA Command Center advises FAA headquarters that an aircraft had seen Flight 93 "waving his wings," the hijackers' efforts to defeat the passengers' counterattack.

10:02 A.M. Communicators with the Vice President in the security bunker begin receiving reports from the Secret Service of an inbound aircraft — presumably hijacked — heading toward Washington. This is Flight 93.

10:03 A.M. United Airlines Flight 93 is crashed by its hijackers and passengers, due to fighting in the cockpit near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Later reports indicate that passengers had learned about the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes on cell phones and at least three were planning on resisting the hijackers; the resistance was confirmed by Flight 93's cockpit voice recording, on which the hijackers are heard making their decision to down the plane before the passengers succeed in breaching the cockpit door.

10:10 A.M. A walled section of The Pentagon collapses.

10:24 A.M. Two men who were being evacuated through the underground shopping mall below the South Tower when it collapsed on them are able to climb up through thirty feet of debris to safety.

10:28 A.M. The North Tower of the World Trade Center begins to collapse. No one who was above the impact zone in the North Tower escapes the collapse. The Marriott Hotel, located at the base of the two towers, is also destroyed. The North Tower collapses 1 hour, 41 minutes and 45 seconds after the impact of Flight 11.

10:50 A.M. Five stories of part of the Pentagon collapse due to the fire.

12:01 P.M. Fourteen people, including twelve firefighters, who were in a section of a stairwell in the North Tower that held together during the collapse, climb the stairs to the top of the Ground Zero rubble field.

1:04 P.M. President Bush puts the U.S. military on high alert worldwide. Taped remarks from the President were aired from Barksdale Air Force Base, stating that "freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended." He also said that the "United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts."

5:20 P.M. 7 World Trade Center, also known as the Salomon Bros. Building, a 47-story building collapses. The building contained New York's emergency operations center, operated by the NYC Office of Emergency Management, originally intended to respond to disasters such as the September 11 terrorist attacks. Due to the emergency personnel having more than enough time to evacuate the building since the collapse of the North Tower, there are no injuries or deaths as a result of the collapse.

7:00 P.M. Efforts to locate survivors in the rubble that had been the twin towers continue at what is known from herin as Ground Zero.

8:00 P.M. Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno, who was in an underground corridor between the two towers, is found alive in the rubble, and eventually freed at approximately 11:00 p.m.

8:30 P.M. President Bush addresses the nation from the White House. Among his statements: "Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts," "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve," and "The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts...we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

9:00 P.M. President Bush meets his full National Security Council, followed roughly half an hour later by a meeting with a smaller group of key advisers. Bush and his advisers have evidence that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks. CIA Director Tenet says that al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan are essentially one and the same. Bush says, "Tell the Taliban we're finished with them."

10:00 P.M. There are reports which are later proven incorrect of many survivors buried in rubble in New York making cell phone calls. Only two more survivors will be pulled from the rubble on September 12 and neither of them had made cell phone calls.

11:00 P.M. After 3 hours, the NYPD, FDNY and PAPD finally dig out Will Jimeno. They learn that port authority police sergeant John McLoughlin is also trapped. The NYPD, FDNY and PAPD dig him out at 8:00 am the next morning after he has been there for almost a day.