The devastating series of events began at 8:45 a.m., when American Flight 11 plowed with a thunderous roar into the north tower of the World Trade Center, the soaring glass and steel symbol of financial might that overlooked the Statue of Liberty. One of the bags, a black suitcase bearing a tag with an Arabic name, contained instructional videotapes on techniques for flying large aircraft, a knife, some type of flight plan or log, a wheel-shaped calculation device used by pilots, and a copy of the Koran, the sources said. Sources said that investigators had seized two pieces of luggage that had missed the flight because of a late connection from a US Airways flight from Portland, Maine. The attendant was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 that had originated in Boston an hour earlier and that was bound for Los Angeles.
Her last words: ''Oh my God, we're going down.'' The sources did not disclose her identity. Just before they lost contact, the sources said, the flight attendant told her supervisor that the aircraft was losing altitude. Authorities would not comment on the call, but Attorney General John Ashcroft confirmed at a news conference that the hijackers had indeed used knives. ''We are being hijacked,'' she said, according to a source. Three authoritative sources told The Boston Globe that a flight attendant aboard one of the two planes that struck the World Trade Center had called a supervisor from the plane to report that ''a Middle Eastern-looking man'' in Business Class had stabbed several passengers and flight attendants. A bin Laden associate is scheduled to be sentenced today in New York for his role in the Tanzania blast. No groups or individuals claimed responsibility, and federal authorities cautioned against leaping to conclusions, even as they focused on the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, a declared enemy of the United States who has been linked to the the coordinated bombings of two US embassies, in Kenya and Tanzania, in 1998.
A worldwide investigation began even before the chaos had eased in New York and Washington, before the plumes of ash had settled, before the victims had been counted and cared for, and before the enormity of events could have been absorbed by stunned and grieving Americans. While Bush spoke, federal aviation, intelligence, and law enforcement authorities struggled to understand how they had been caught so completely by surprise. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.'' A congressman said the apparent target of the fourth jet was Camp David, the presidential retreat, 85 miles away.Ī somber President Bush vowed in a prime-time address that the United States would use all its resources to ''find those responsible and bring them to justice. A third crumpled a section of the Pentagon, and a fourth plowed into a grassy field in Pennsylvania. With chilling precision in less than two hours, two suicide jet crashes destroyed the landmark twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.
(AP Photo)īy Mitchell Zuckoff and Matthew Brelis, Globe Staff, Įrrorists hijacked four passenger jets and turned them into guided missiles yesterday, striking at US government and financial capitals, in choreographed attacks that left thousands feared dead and that shredded the nation's sense of security. The World Trade Center in New York City crumbles to the ground along with America's belief that an attack of this level could not be carried out on US soil.