September 11, 2001: A Timeline Quiz

It was at 8:14 AM that air traffic controllers at the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center lost radio and radar contact with American Airlines Flight 11. Flight 11 was a Boeing 767 traveling from Boston to Los Angeles. The aircraft had been hijacked shortly after takeoff, although controllers didn't know that yet. Flight 11 had stopped responding to radio communications, and within minutes its transponder signal would be switched off.

This was one of the first signs that something was very wrong aboard the aircraft.

United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 traveling from Boston to Los Angeles, was hijacked at 8:42 AM after take-off from Logan International Airport. The aircraft had taken off about 15 minutes earlier, carrying 56 passengers and 9 crew members. Flight 175 operated normally at first, maintaining routine radio contact with air traffic controllers during its initial climb. Within minutes, however, its behavior began to become erratic, and controllers would soon realize that another aircraft had been taken.

In a demonstration of just how fast things were happening, this was also the time that United Airlines Flight 93 took off after a 42-minute delay.

At 8:46 AM, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The airplane struck the building between the 93rd and 99th floors, creating a catastrophic disaster on the ground. The crash caused a huge explosion and sent smoke and debris pouring from the tower. Meanwhile, people throughout Lower Manhattan began realizing that something terrible was going on.

United Airlines Flight 175 punched into the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 AM, just 17 minutes after Flight 11 had struck the North Tower. The Boeing 767, traveling from Boston to Los Angeles, hit the building between the 77th and 85th floors.

It was all captured on live television, making it evident to millions of people that the first crash had not been a freak accident: the United States was facing a coordinated terrorist attack.

At 9:28 AM, United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 flying from Newark to San Francisco, was hijacked shortly after reaching cruising altitude. The cockpit crew and passengers were confronted by the hijackers, and the plane's course was changed. By this point, the attacks on the World Trade Center were already underway. Within two minutes of the hijacking, passengers on Flight 93 began making phone calls and learned about the strikes in New York.

Their actions over the next half hour would prove to have a bittersweet ending, as they prevented the aircraft from reaching its target.

At 9:37 AM, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the center of the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington D.C. The Boeing 757 had been hijacked after leaving Washington Dulles International Airport and was deliberately flown into the western side of the building.

The impact caused a huge fire and severe damage, killing all 64 people aboard the aircraft as well as 125 personnel inside the Pentagon.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) took an extraordinary step at 9:45 AM: it ordered all civilian aircraft in U.S. airspace to land at the nearest suitable airport. The order was issued, because authorities still had no idea of the scope of the attack or how many more hijacked planes there might still be. Thousands of flights were affected, and aircraft already flying were instructed to land as soon as they could.

It was an unprecedented move that brought the nation's civilian air traffic system to a complete halt.

The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 9:59 AM, less than an hour after United Airlines Flight 175 had crashed into it. It was the second tower hit, but the first to fall. The collapse happened in just 10 seconds, sending a massive cloud of dust and debris through the surrounding streets. The sudden fall left onlookers terrified, stunned, and engulfed in dust.

At 10:03 AM, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers and crew heroically fought back against the hijackers. The Boeing 757 had been headed toward San Francisco, but after learning through phone calls about the attacks in New York and Washington, passengers realized that their aircraft was almost certainly part of the same plot.

They attempted to regain control of the plane, and during the struggle, Flight 93 went into the ground in rural Somerset County. All 40 passengers and crew members aboard were killed. Still, their resistance prevented the hijackers from reaching their intended target.

At 10:28 AM, the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. It burned for 1 hour and 42 minutes following the impact of American Airlines Flight 11, but took only seconds to fall, leaving only debris. By then, the South Tower had already collapsed, and the destruction of the North Tower left one of the landmark in ruins.

At 5:20 PM, 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story office building located near the Twin Towers, collapsed after burning for several hours. The building had not been struck by a hijacked airplane, but it had suffered serious damage as a result of the collapse of the North Tower. It was engulfed in flames that firefighters had been unable to control for the entire afternoon.

At 8:30 PM, President George W. Bush addressed the American people in a televised speech from the White House. He spoke from the Oval Office and described the day's attacks as deliberate acts of terrorism and assured the country that the government was responding. Bush paid tribute to the victims, praised the courage of first responders and ordinary citizens, and vowed that those responsible would be brought to justice.

It was a defining moment of a day that had started with confusion and shock and ended with the country facing a dramatically altered reality.