9/11? what a day to remember. The attacks involved the hijacking and crashing of four commercial passenger airplanes, with two planes being flown into world trade center and two into a pentagon.
An event where almost 3,000 people died, countless were injured, countless families were shattered, and a nation was left in disarray when 19 hijackers from the organization. The attacks were planned well in advance; the militants—most of whom were from Saudi Arabia—traveled to the U.S. beforehand, where a number received commercial flight training. At 8:37 a.m., Flight 11 began a rapid descent of 3,200 feet per minute toward New York City, gradually losing speed. Three minutes before impact, Atta completed his final turn toward Manhattan, flying south over the city in the direction of the World Trade Center.
This attack was so serious but seeing it felt so unreal because everything was all over the place filled with ashes, smoke, and burnt objects, just by seeing this on the news and etc. I can only imagine what people had to experience in person. The emotional distress caused by the attacks particularly the collapse of the twin towers, New York City’s most visible landmark was overwhelming. Hundreds of thousands of people witnessed the attacks firsthand many onlookers photographed events or recorded them with video cameras, and millions watched the tragedy unfold live on television.
Despite their success in causing widespread destruction and death, the September 11 attacks were a strategic failure for al-Qaeda. Each structure was badly damaged by the impact and erupted into flames. Office workers who were trapped above the points of impact in some cases leapt to their deaths rather than face the infernos now raging inside the towers. The third plane, American Airlines flight 77, taking off from Dulles Airport near Washington D.C., struck the southwest side of the pentagon (just outside the city) at 9:37 am, touching off a fire in that section of the structure. Minutes later the Federal Aviation Authority ordered a nationwide ground stop, and within the next hour (at 10:03 am) the fourth aircraft, United Airlines flight 93 from Newmark, New Jersey, crashed near Shanksville in the Pennsylvania countryside after its passengers—informed of events via cellular phone—attempted to overpower their assailants.
