September 11th, 2001 timeline
The following was written by MCPO USN NYC (Ret) and posted at his request;
Lest we forget 15 years ago today . . .
7:59 am – American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 92 people aboard, takes off from Boston’s Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles.
8:14 am – United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 with 65 people aboard, takes off from Boston; it is also headed to Los Angeles.
8:19 am – Flight attendants aboard Flight 11 alert ground personnel that the plane has been hijacked; American Airlines notifies the FBI.
8:20 am – American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. The Boeing 757 is headed to Los Angeles with 64 people aboard.
8:24 am – Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the plane’s cabin).
8:41 am – United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 44 people aboard, takes off from Newark International Airport en route to San Francisco. It had been scheduled to depart at 8:00 am, around the time of the other hijacked flights.
8:46 am – Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash the plane into floors 93-99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building.
8:47 am – Within seconds, NYPD and FDNY forces dispatch units to the World Trade Center, while Port Authority Police Department officers on site begin immediate evacuation of the North Tower.
9:03 am – Hijackers crash United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 75-85 of the WTC’s South Tower, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building
9:08 am – The FAA bans all takeoffs of flights going to New York City or through the airspace around the city.
9:21 am – The Port Authority closes all bridges and tunnels in the New York City area.
9:24 am – The FAA notified NEADS of the suspected hijacking of Flight 77 after some passengers and crew aboard are able to alert family members on the ground.
9:37 am – Hijackers aboard Flight 77 crash the plane into the western façade of the
Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing 59 aboard the plane and 125 military and civilian personnel inside the building.
9:59 am – The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses.
10:07 am – After passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked Flight 93 contact friends and family and learn about the attacks in New York and Washington, they mount an attempt to retake the plane. In response, hijackers deliberately crash the plane into a field in Somerset County,
Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew aboard.
10:28 am – The World Trade Center’s North Tower collapses, 102 minutes after being struck by Flight 11.
5:20 pm – The 47-story Seven World Trade Center collapses after burning for hours; the building had been evacuated in the morning, and there are no casualties, though the collapse forces rescue workers to flee for their lives.
8:30 pm – President Bush addresses the nation, calling the attacks “evil, despicable acts of terror” and declaring that America, its friends and allies would “stand together to win the war against terrorism.”
. . .
Editorial Note: At approximately 0100 on May 2, 2011, a 79 member joint team, including MWD Cairo, delivered by the Night Stalkers and operating with Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU aka SEAL Team SIX) RED Squadron raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden with one shot to the head followed by another shot to the chest. Mission Commander of OPERATION NEPTUNE SPEAR and DEVGRU RED Squadron OIC on scene reported, “for God and country … Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo”, and then, after being prompted for confirmation, “Geronimo E.K.I.A.” (enemy killed in action). Within 24 hours of his death, the lifeless and soulless body of bin Laden was unceremoniously dumped in to the Indian Ocean by a lone junior Sailor from the USS Carl Vincent for the sharks and sea snakes to feed upon.
Category: We Remember
Thanks Jonn!
I am onboard a flight on my way to Florida!
God Bless America!
Out!
Stay safe, Master Chief.
Sounds like a pretty good way to commemorate the date. God speed.
Amen, Master Chief!
If you listen to John Kiriakou’s interview, he mentions that the CIA was well aware of jihadists planning a big attack in the United States because there were more than enough indicators. The agency came up with a number of models of what could happen, and the planes hitting the towers was one of those models, but they didn’t have enough information to determine if that was the one the hijackers were going to do. Part of the blame could be placed on the Clinton administration, which boiled down the military/intelligence services to dangerous levels, and another part of the blame on a lack of information sharing which has long been fixed. Intelligence can only reduce uncertainty, not destroy it completely.
Well, if you want to call 98+% “part”, I guess I can agree.
It takes far more than 7 months 21 days of adult leadership to fix 8 years of misguided, childish neglect – more than 4 years of which came after Al Qaeda had formally declared war on America in August, 1996. And that last bit (misguided, childish neglect) precisely describes the Clintoon administration’s approach to dealing with international terrorism from its first day in office.
I was in California at this time, attending a computer conference. I remember eating breakfast that day at a nearby restaurant. People were talking about a plane crash on the east coast.
By the time the conference started that day, the sponsors of the seminar decided to cancel the event. It took me three days to finally fly home.
Friend of mine was TDY and could not, of course, fly nor was there a rental car to be had. He did something I would have never thought of: rented a huge U-Haul truck and drove it cross country by himself and nothing in it. Little old lady in tennis shoes gave him crap about his travel voucher but he prevailed.
I was also in California at the time, waiting to pick up my morning coffee in the drive thru.
The radio mentioned a plane had hit the WTC, no more detail than that. I thought back and remembered a bomber had hit the Empire State Building in 1945, and though (hoped) is was something like that.
Then they said the other plane hit, right as I got up to the window. I told the worker, and she asked how many people were hurt. Knowing two planes was no coincidence, I said, “Maybe thousands.”
By the time I got to work, the firest tower had just collapsed. Needless to say, we finished our work as quickly as possible. Where I was working that day was in the landing path on one of the LAX runways. But it was dead, eerie silence. I’ve also never seen LA freeways that quiet during the day, before or since.
On the morning of Tuesday 11 September 2001, I was serving a full-time mission for The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints (i.e., the “Mormon” church) guarding a cattle ranch in Jensen, Utah, along with my mission companion, “Ringo”, the amazing Border Collie and trusty star wonder dog of the Rocking “G” Ranch.
When I turned on my computer, there was a mysterious mass e-mail pleading for blood donors.
Curious, I went to the DRUDGE REPORT web site, where I initially thought that the web site had been hacked by someone playing a cruel joke.
Then, I turned on the television set – – – ,
The image that stays in my head is of the man and woman holding hands as they leap to their death from the heights of that burning skyscraper.
Years later, when I was living in Washington, D.C. at the Ol’ soldiers’ Home, a group of us were invited to the Pentagon for the Army’s Birthday (14 June 1775), and we were given a small tour, which included the Memorial Chapel, built in honor of the casualties of Tuesday 11 September 2001, a Memorial Chapel where the general public is not permitted, but ONLY employees of the Pentagon.
Since then, a memorial for public access has been built outside of the Pentagon.
What REALLY bothers me about Tuesday 11 September 2001, is that our government used it as an excuse to oppress the American people, i.e., unanimous midnight Congressional passing of the onerous and clearly unconstitutional “U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act”, and creating the Nazi/Communist/Socialist dictatorship bureaucracies of the unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Safety Administration.
Further, the attacks on America were carried out by Saudi Arabian citizens, and financed with Saudi Arabian money, yet we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, while not taking any military action against Saudi Arabia.
Went up there to support this with the company at which I work. Got there on 9/1301. Started at the National Guard Center in the Makeshift “center” and ended up working at the piers providing assistance to the Gov, victims, etc. 2 months of seeing pure hell. Never Forgive; Never Forget.
No one knew exactly what was going on. Then the second plane hit the other WTC tower.
Turmoil ensued in Chicago. We were all told to go home. I took some cash out of my account at the ATM, because I did not know if the banks were going to shut everything down as a precaution. No one knew what was going on.
Mayor Daley evacuated the Loop, told everyone to go home. People came out of the Sears Tower carrying their hard drives with them.
The CTA buses were lined up in bunches, doors open, no fare required even if you had it. Just get in, load the bus up and leave. Fled north on Clark Street and got bogged down at Diversey because a construction crane had to be moved. I almost got off the bus and started walking, but sat and waited a little longer.
There were confused reports about a plane crash in Washington, which building was hit – Sam Rayburn Bldg or Justice Dept – then it was cleared up as being the Pentagon. My niece was at Walter Reed. She told me later it was like a war zone, you had to show ID everywhere you went, even to cross a bridge. She sounded exhausted.
Got home in time to see the first tower implode and mumbled something like ‘what is happening in my country?’
Then the second tower imploded.
People ran for whatever cover they could find. New Yorkers started walking away from the disaster scene, the ferries getting people out of the city were loaded to the gills, and smaller boats assisted them.
All planes were grounded. It was spooky to see nothing in the air, not even a news helicopter.
The hijackers had turned off the transponders in all of those planes.
Sometime during that timeline Rick Resciorla was ordering the evacuation of the employees of the company that he worked for in the WTC, seeing to the evacuation and then reentering the burning building with some of his security personnel to look for those unaccounted for-an act which cost him his life. Every American schoolchild should know his name-I doubt that more than one in a thousand has ever heard of him.
I think I remember seeing a movie on television about his life, but being elderly, I could be mistaken.
I know I’ve read articles about him.
guaranteed my grandkids do. And will be reminded again today.
First reports on a Houston radio station was that a small plane had hit…then reports started stacking up: they were passenger planes, one, then two had hit the Pentagon, supposedly another in downtown DC, then flight 93 – reporting was a mess. Spent the morning at the office watching Internet news and trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, and thinking the “who could have ever thought of this?” folks had obviously never read Tom Clancy. At the time I lived in the western flight path for Bush International… the first plane flying in days later was an incredible noise after a couple of days of no-fly silence.
http://www.rickrescorla.com/
It’s 10:25 AM as i write this. in about two hours it will be 15 years since i first saw what happened to the US. i had just enlisted in the NYS National guard on 28 Aug 01as a medic since my GI Bill was just about to run out of time for me to use it. I did my first and only drill on 08 Sep 01. On 9/11/01 i was two weeks in to a nice cushy job as an Security installations manager and was out in Port Jervis getting ready to start an Install. When i arrived at the shop that morning my boss was talking about the 1st plane that hit and everyone was of the opinion that it was a light aircraft. When we arrived on the job site the 2nd plane hit as we were talking to the client, but this time we all saw it was a Jet. it took me the better part of 10 mins to get through to the Armory and i was told to report in as fast as we could get there. when i arrived at the armory, someone had sent a 5 ton to Home depot and asked for 1/2 sheets of plywood and 2×4 to make expedient stretchers. if we had to go down. when the the 2nd tower fell we were dispatched south to the city and got down to battery park just about 2 hours after the 2nd tower had fallen. we were supposed to be doing triage there but most everyone that had been hurt was already swamping the hospitals in NYC and we really were not ready supply and training wise for what we were tasked to do. i have been in a lot of bad places and seen a lot of destruction but to this day i really have no words to describe what i saw that day, the smells, sounds and the destruction. 15 years ago i was fundamentally changed as a person. on 17 Oct 01 i called my boss and quit my 110k job for the $100 a… Read more »
Thank you for your service.
Those of us able to ended up en route to DC that day, some of us after completing various tasks and a full duty day at home station. It took me until mid-afternoon of the 12th to get there. The trip was so quiet.
My most important task was to activate informal communications with my counterpart in NY to account for all personnel and determine what we could do to support them.
My first impression was that somebody somewhere was taking it all VERY seriously. As soon as I walked in the door (having traversed three separate security checkpoints) I was issued a cell phone, multiple computers, and a work area in the middle of everything. Strange.
It was days before we established anything like a “normal” work schedule. People were napping in their uniforms, no way to clean them, all looking horrid. Some time the following week we got back to recognizing rank and began to look like military members again. Those first days we simply all pulled together as humans.
Jihad Report
August, 2016
Attacks 203
Killed 1637
Injured 1734
Suicide Blasts 29
Countries 33
Feel free to browse the site for totals. This is the Religion of Peace after all.
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30
I was up in Northern Indiana that day, had just finished getting unloaded and was awaiting my next load assignment. I turned on the radio in my truck cab hoping to catch up on some news and heard talk about the WTC Towers collapsing. I was in total denial thinking it was some kind of “War of the Worlds” type of show, and I then saw some of the video when I turned on the TV I had with me. Driving OTR wasn’t the same for a while, it felt VERY eerie driving past say, Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta and seeing no planes in the sky, ditto with all of the other major urban centers I went to or through in the following weeks.
I was on Okinawa when 9/11 happened – Typhoon Nari was hammering the island – was awoken from sleeping by the sound of LAV’s moving on the roads of Camp Schwab. Turned on the TV and saw what was happening in NYC and DC. Blown away would be an understatement – put on clothes and ran over to the clinic to be with the younger Corpsmen there on duty, gave anyone that had family a chance to call home to see if things were OK (fortunately, none has family in the Twin Towers). Tried to be a father to those that were overwhelmed by what happened and to keep them busy.
Info on Nari here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Nari_(2001)
Called home and talked to my wife (at the time) she said that the ANG had jets taking off from the local airport – said that the area had a real “eerie feeling” about it, streets were empty. When she went into work later, she was overwhelmed by the number of people in front of TV as the hospital she worked at, all stunned by what had happened hours earlier.
I can’t watch the annual “as it happened” events on TV – I still hurt knowing how many lost friends, family and loved ones on that day. It bothers me that our leaders don’t seem to have the guts to finish the mission – OBL was the mastermind – but they just don’t have the balls to deliver the knockout blow.
Little after 0300 local time on Johnston Island. The wife and I had worked our shift and back in our room had fallen asleep watching TV. She woke me up in time to see the second plane hit. Will never forget.
Will NEVER forgive.
You were never on Johnston Island…it was all a bad dream. There is no Johnston Island, never was a Johnston Island.
The guys with the flashy thingy are looking for you.
Dammit. Looks like I need a fresh roll of tin-foil….
NEVER forgive and NEVER forget. Since that day there have been many other attacks against civilization in general from civilization’s enemy known as Radical Islam, and to many Islam, PERIOD. We have Western politicians screeching and whining for us to take them in en masse and accommodate them, and WHAT do we get in return? Much more crime and vandalism, they come and demand that they be accommodated by our changing to their way of life (FUCK THAT) and customs, sharia law, etc… FUCK THEM, they still owe us for how the West helped build their part of the world. YES I say that, look at the Saudi oil fields for one example,it was American oil companies that helped them find the oil deposits, drill and tap them, build pipelines, refineries as well as other things they needed and afterward they pissed in our faces, I say FUCK THEM.
By this time 15 years ago, NYPD HQ was evacuated of all non-essential and non-NYPD personnel, NYC OEM building was destroyed and in less than 12 hours we had outfitted a temporary command center at a then secret undisclosed location. The library at the NYPD Police Academy was that location. I was on team of mil and NYPD who led the effort to empty the library and set up comms, computers et al. The library became the impromptu JOC until Friday when there was an orderly transfer to an enormous state of the art Joint Field Office (JFO) that was built out by FEMA. Located on the west side piers, just north of the USS Intrepid, this JFO accomodated over 5,000 on duty emergency managers, first responders, law enforcement and intel types 24/7 for months on end. I was done by Friday the 14th (as I had not seen or used a rack in four days) and treated for severe exhaustion, dehydration, minor burns and what was called then an “occupatuonal non-specific resporitory illness”. We called it the WTC hack. Several weeks later I was recalled to active duty for 22 or so months.
But what do I know …
Wow. Awesome.
I was in the clinic that morning. Someone came for me and I went into patient waiting area. Within a few minutes, every provider and patient in the clinic was grouped around the TVs. No one spoke for several minutes. Then we went back to work.
I was in the basement Support Equipment Building on Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral. We were working on the air handlers for the building. My company had not yet taken possession of the Pad from the Contractors building it for our new Delta IV launch vehicles.
My co-worker and i came upstairs to see a bunch of Construction workers running around willy-nilly. I grabbed on asking what is going on. He said something about airplanes crashing, and one was supposedly heading our way.
Charlie and I looked at one another confused. Charlie told him to calm down, that he was in the safest building on the pad.
We got into our truck and drove down to the blockhouse, where it was all confirmed. One of the engineers had a small TV in his car and we watched as the collapse happened. We were stuck on the island, because all draw bridges headed to KSC and CCAFS were in the up position for security reasons.
I finally got home, and spent the next eight hours watching it all over and over again…wishing I was back in the Navy.
On a very personal note, my Dad’s heart surgery the next year was postponed from 9/9 to 9/11 – spent the whole day in the waiting room waiting for word while the TV blared “Taps” seemingly endlessly. Possibly one of the longest days of my life.