On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists boarded 4 commercial passenger jets and staged a horrible attack on the United States. The airplanes were supposed to be heading for San Fransisco and Los Angeles after leaving Boston, Newark and Washington, D.C. The terrorists hijacked the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City at 8:46 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175 was the second plane to be hijacked, crashing into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. The collisions killed every passenger onboard the aircrafts as well as the terrorists who hijacked them. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower collapsed followed by the North Tower a half hour later. Later on that day, another one of the World Trade Center buildings collapsed as well and the others had to be demolished because of too much damage that could not be repaired. New York City's fire department as well as police and EMT's rushed to the scene, trying to evacuate employees before the towers fell and continued to search through the rubble for victims when they went down. A huge cloud of dust and debris raced through the streets, covering everything in its path, and everyone who had witnessed the attacks feared another would be one its way.
Their predictions were right, however the next attacks were not aimed for New York City. Instead, another group of hijackers flew the third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, into the Pentagon just outside of Washington D.C. at 9:37 a.m. This crash collapsed one section of the building and set fire to another, resulting in severe damage. The al-Qaeda terrorists still did not stop there. The fourth and final plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after its passengers fought with the hijackers in an effort to regain control of the aircraft which was ultimately headed for the Capitol Building. Reports from phone calls made by the passengers during the attacks say that the hijackers used knives to kill the pilots and flight attendants. Every passenger onboard these flights died as well.
Consequences:
The total number of known deaths after all four attacks was 2,996 including the terrorist hijackers. 246 of these deaths were from the airplanes, 2,606 from the towers and on the ground, and 125 from the attack at the Pentagon. A total of 411 emergency workers also lost their lives trying to rescue survivors and put out the fires. Only half of the victims could be rightly identified. A substantial amount of damage and destruction occured to neighboring buildings and businesses including the entire World Trade Center. Others were condemed due to toxic conditions inside them. Clean up and recovery at the WTC took eight months to complete and plans to rebuild the site have been proposed. The attacks also hurt signicantly hurt the economy and the stock market. Hundreds of thousand of jobs were lost and billions of dollars were needed to rebuild the New York City. Lower Manhattan was also hurt when office space and many small businesses were destroyed or damaged. Illnesses due to the dust and debris also affected many rescue workers who spent too much time on the scene and several deaths have been linked to toxic contaminents from the towers. One of the biggest consequences however, is the War on Terror which is still being fought in the Middle East today.
I don't really remember much about September 11th because I was only in 1st grade at the time. Many of the teachers at school were talking about it but i didn't really understand. I think it was kind of ironic that they attacks occured on 9/11 because 9-1-1 is the number you would call in an emergency. As I'm writing this blog I feel a lot of sympathy for the families who lost loved ones on this day and how hard it was for them to hear that they will never see their mother or son or siser ever again. I also can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for the victims who were on the planes or in the Twin Towers when they were hit and how terrified they were, knowing that they might not make it out alive. This event brought America closer together and I think people realized how much they were taking for granted. Despite all the bad things that happened on this day, nine years ago, I think a lot of good came out of it as well.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/September_11%2C_2001_attacks
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