Lauren Halstead

(LMS 1) Nov. 26th, 2012

SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001

On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Often referred to as 9/11, the attacks resulted in extensive death and destruction, triggering major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism and defining the presidency of George W. Bush. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., including more than 400 police officers and firefighters. These attacks changed the way we viewed terrorism, national security, and ourselves. We were no longer ‘invincible.’

9/11

A loosely-knit militant Islamic organization led and funded by Osama bin Laden, by whom it was established in the late 1980s from Arab volunteers who had fought the Soviet troops previously based in Afghanistan; known or believed to be behind a number of operations against Western, especially US, interests, including bomb attacks on two US embassies in Africa in 1998 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.

AL-QAEDA

On the morning of September 11th, terrorists hijacked four commercial jet planes and attempted to fly them into several U.S. targets. One of the planes, American Airlines Flight 11, crashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center at 8:50 AM. United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into Tower Two at 9:04 AM. As the world watched Tower Two collapsed to the ground at about 10:00 AM. Unfortunately, this horrible scene was duplicated at 10:30 AM when Tower One crashed to the ground. This terrorist attack brought about the death of approximately 3,000 men, women and children from nations around the world.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

Within 30 minutes of two planes hitting the World Trade Center twin towers, American Airlines Flight 77 departed Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles. The Boeing 757 was hijacked and crashed, loaded with 10,000 gallons of fuel, at 345 mph into the west side of the Pentagon. The five-story Pentagon is made up of five pentagonal structures arranged in concentric rings. These rings surround a five-acre open courtyard and are connected by 10 spike-like corridors. The plane took out light poles in the parking lot, hit the ground just outside the outermost ring of the Pentagon, turned up on its wing, and penetrated the E ring (outermost) midway between corridors 4 and 5. It then traveled through the D ring and into the C ring

THE PENTAGON

THE PENTAGON: CONTINUED

United Airlines Flight 93 was a passenger flight which was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. It crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, during an attempt by some of the passengers to regain control, killing all 44 people aboard including the 4 hijackers. No one on the ground was injured. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 757–222, was flying United Airlines' daily scheduled morning domestic flight from Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco International Airport in San Mateo County, California.

The hijackers breached the aircraft's cockpit and overpowered the flight crew approximately 46 minutes after takeoff. Ziad Jarrah, a trained pilot, then took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the east coast of the United States in the direction of Washington, D.C. The hijackers' specific target is believed to have been the United States Capitol.

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 93

After the hijackers took control of the plane, several passengers and flight attendants were able to make telephone calls and learn that attacks had already been made by other hijacked airlines on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Some of the passengers then attempted to regain control of the aircraft. During the attempt, however, the plane crashed into a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, about 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Washington, D.C. A few witnessed the impact from the ground and news agencies began reporting the event within an hour.

Subsequent analysis of the flight recorders recovered from the crash site revealed how the actions taken by the passengers prevented the aircraft from reaching the hijackers' intended target. Of the four aircraft hijacked on September 11 – the others were American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 175 – United Airlines Flight 93 was the only one that failed to reach its hijackers' intended target.

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 93 CONTINUED

PICTURES OF FLIGHT 93

Immediately after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, both houses of Congress made proposals to provide legitimate legal authority to detect, deter and prevent future acts of terror on American soil or against Americans traveling anywhere else in the world.

We truly entered the War on Terror.

For more in-depth info on U.S. Response:

http://www.11september2001memorial.com/a1.html

http://www.history.com/topics/reaction-to-9-11

AMERICA’S RESPONSE

http://timeline.national911memorial.org/ (interactive) timeline(s)

http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks pictures, videos, articles, etc

http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/usgd/wtc.html official documents of the attacks

FOR MORE INFORMATION: