Probably every modern person has heard something about the 2001 terrorist attack that occurred in New York. However, some people do not know about the details, while others simply forgot - after all, almost two decades have passed since this terrible event. We will try to deal with this tragedy as objectively as possible, but at the same time briefly.

What it is

The terrorist attack occurred on September 11, 2001. And almost immediately the terrible news spread throughout the world. Some mourned the victims, while others grinned maliciously and rejoiced at the death of thousands of innocent people.

The fact is that it was September 11 in New York that passenger aircraft crashed into two World Trade Center towers. The terrorist attack is remembered by many as the bloodiest in the history of mankind.

How did it all happen?

Now we will try to recreate in detail the events of the terrorist attack of September 2001.

On this day, airports operated as usual. Many dozens of airliners taking off from different cities USA, heading to California. It was only on board four planes flying from Newark, Logan and Dulles airports that everything went completely wrong - they were hijacked almost simultaneously shortly after takeoff. They were not chosen by chance - due to the considerable length of the routes, there was a large amount of fuel on board the aircraft - approximately 30-35 tons of aviation kerosene.

So far, experts have not been able to come to a conclusion general opinion, how did nineteen terrorists manage to hijack four huge airliners. Some argue that for this purpose they used ordinary office cutters, with which the terrorists trained for a long time before going “into action.” Others believe that tear gas was also used - a message about this was received from the pilot of one of the hijacked planes.

The passengers and crew of one of the planes attempted to regain control of the plane, as a result of which the terrorists' plans were thwarted - the aircraft crashed onto a field in Pennsylvania. The terrorists and everyone on board died.

The second plane was aimed at the Pentagon building near Washington. The terrorists managed to carry out their plan and crash into the Pentagon. However, the location for the terrorist attack was not chosen very well - it was in this wing that renovations were being carried out at that time. Therefore, the number of victims turned out to be relatively small - not counting the terrorists, passengers and crew members on board, a little more than a hundred people died. If the plane had crashed into the building from the other side, the number of victims would have increased at least several times.

But, of course, the most terrible and memorable events of the 2011 terrorist attack unfolded in New York. It was here that two Boeing 767-200 aircraft with numbers N334AA and N612UA headed. Their targets were the well-known twin towers, which housed the World War II shopping mall.

The first crashed into the north tower at approximately 8:46 a.m. at a height of 94-98 floors.

The second hit the south tower at 9:03 a.m. It was directed lower - approximately at the 78-85 floor level. Since television crews had already arrived at the scene, rushing to film the scene of the first explosion, the second terrorist attack was filmed from several angles.

As a result of the aircraft hitting the buildings, a fire started - it was no coincidence that the aircraft with big amount fuel on board. Tens of tons of fuel, spilling out of broken tanks, flooded many floors. And due to the powerful impact that damaged the supporting structures, the buildings began to rapidly collapse.

The tower, the first to be attacked by terrorists (north), collapsed at 10:28. This happened due to a fire that was extinguished only after 102 minutes.

The south tower collapsed much faster - already at 9:56, and the fire lasted only 56 minutes.

However, the terrorist attack had further consequences. Powerful explosions in the attacked buildings led to gas exploding in another tower - WTC-7 - and starting a powerful fire, which could not be stopped quickly. As a result, it collapsed at 17:20.

Number of victims

As mentioned above, the total number of terrorists on board the four aircraft was 19 people. Of course, they all died.

The terrorists who hijacked United Flight 93, which crashed in a field near Washington, failed to complete their mission. Therefore, only passengers and crew members died - the total number of victims was 40 people.

The actions of terrorists who chose the Pentagon as their target turned out to be more effective. In addition to the 59 passengers and members on board, 125 people in the building died.

But, of course, the highest were the “indicators” of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center buildings. The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 not only claimed the lives of the 147 people on board. Also, 2,606 people died in the building and its wreckage.

Yes, not everyone knows about this, but not all victims of September 11 died precisely because of the terrorist attack itself. 341 firefighters from the city fire department, as well as two paramedics, died while containing and extinguishing the fire, as well as during the search for survivors. In addition, the victims include 60 police officers, as well as 8 emergency doctors.

As a result of the fire, a huge amount of toxic substances were released into the air - insulation and heat-insulating materials, thickly saturated with fuel, burned. It was because of this that the last victim of the terrorist attack, Felicia Dunn-Jones, died. Moreover, this happened just a few months after the disaster. Carbon monoxide poisoning led to pulmonary failure. Therefore, her name is also included in the lists of those killed due to the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001.

In total, 2,977 people died as a result of the tragedy, not counting the terrorists. Among them were citizens not only of the United States, but also of almost hundreds of other countries.

Still, the number of victims could have been much higher. About 16 thousand people who were below the floors to which the planes were sent managed to evacuate from the WTC buildings.

Who are the performers?

Officially, the terrorist attack was planned and carried out by the forces of al-Qaeda, one of the most famous terrorist groups in the world. It was headed by Osama bin Laden himself, whose name was featured on news programs for many years. And the group itself quickly took responsibility, declaring that this terrorist attack was a response to US support for Israel, as well as the deployment of troops to Afghanistan.

Of the nineteen performers, fifteen come from Saudi Arabia, two from the UAE, one more each from Egypt and Lebanon.

Are the secret services behind the terrorist attacks?

However, the question of who organized the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States is not at all closed. There are a huge number of versions, the authors of which look for contradictions in official version, and sometimes they come up with them. Unfortunately, because of the latter, most people don't take the former too seriously. After all, there really are a lot of inconsistencies in this matter.

For example, all the information about the terrorists was obtained due to the fact that the bag of one of them was accidentally detained at the airport and did not get on the plane. It was in it that the true documents of all participants in the terrorist attack were located.

In addition, the buildings did not collapse immediately after the collision with the planes, but an hour and a half later, as a result of fires. But an ordinary fire, even with the use aviation fuel, cannot melt the load-bearing supports of skyscrapers - this was confirmed by the engineers and builders who worked on their construction. And some experts argue that the destruction is more characterized by the nature of a series of small directed explosions, one by one destroying the load-bearing structures.

Another interesting fact is that the buildings were insured against terrorist attacks several months before the 2001 terrorist attack.

The exact wing where repairs were being carried out was chosen as the site of the attack on the Pentagon - secret documents and senior officials were temporarily moved to other departments. And what’s even more surprising is that judging by the photo from the scene of the terrorist attack, there are completely no fragments of the plane that crashed into the building.

And this is far from full list strange events associated with the terrorist attack. This makes you wonder - why did the intelligence services not notice or ignore them? Is this not a consequence of the fact that the explosions were carried out by the intelligence services themselves?

The trail leads to Iran

There is also a version that the terrorist attack at the Gemini on September 11, 2001 was carried out not without the intervention of intelligence services from Iran. Moreover, information about this came from Iranian intelligence officers and employees of the Ministry of Intelligence. Speaking in court in Manhattan, they stated under oath that the Iranian government not only sponsored the terrorist attacks, but also participated in their development and implementation. And soon after the explosions themselves, they provided support to hundreds of al-Qaeda militants.

American government reaction

A month after the sad events, the US government assembled and led an international coalition whose goal was to overthrow the Taliban regime. State representatives said that al-Qaeda is located precisely in Afghanistan, where it is supported by the Taliban and coordinates the actions of its members around the world.

A series of arrests were also made both in the United States and in other countries. But, judging by the fact that the intelligence services of other countries handed over prisoners to their American colleagues, this could not have happened without support from the CIA.

Security measures taken

Of course, the American public demanded certain measures that would increase the level of security in the country.

In a matter of months after the terrorist attack, over 80 thousand Arabs, as well as emigrants from other Muslim countries, were forced to undergo fingerprint checks and were registered in special registries. About 8 thousand people were interrogated, 5 thousand were detained.

Economic consequences

2001 had other consequences.

For example, a telephone exchange near the World Trade Center was destroyed due to an explosion and fires. As a result, the American Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ had to be closed. Their work was restored only on September 17. Because of this downtime, American exchanges lost about $1.2 trillion in a matter of days. This still ranks as the Dow Jones Industrial Average's biggest drop in a week.

Due to the explosions, all air travel within the United States was also canceled for several days. And in the following weeks and months, people were openly afraid to fly on planes, fearing a repeat of the terrorist attack. As a result, passenger traffic fell by 20%, creating serious problems for the entire US airline industry.

Reaction in the world

People around the world reacted strongly to the 2001 terrorist attack in New York.

Basically, the reaction was unambiguous - ordinary people and heads of government expressed grief over the innocent dead people. However, there were exceptions to this list.

For example, the Iraqi government said that American citizens were only reaping the fruits of their crimes.

The citizens of Palestine also openly rejoiced at the 2001 terrorist attack - solemn processions were organized here. Which is not surprising - the United States supported the Jews, relations with whom the Palestinians have very strained.

Finally, there were demonstrations in China, where students carried banners with slogans in support of terrorists.

Memory of the dead

  • On the day of the 2001 terrorist attack, a minute of silence was declared in almost all European countries as a sign of grief. A candlelight vigil was held in Washington.
  • In place of the destroyed twin towers, two powerful spotlights were installed, aimed at the sky. The exhibition was called "Tribute in Light".

  • In the Pentagon, a small chapel was built at the site of the deaths.
  • A memorial has been erected at the site of the crash of Flight 93.
  • Act 111-13 established September 11 as the date of the "National Day of Service and Remembrance."

Conclusion

This concludes our article. Now you know more about the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Of course, the story is quite ambiguous and full of blind spots. But who knows, maybe over time a more comprehensive version will appear that will put everything in its place.

The official version is an official lie!

US Army Sergeant Donald Buswell was disciplined "for using a government-owned email address to send messages hostile to the United States." A veteran of the Iraq campaign had the imprudence to doubt the official version of the events of September 11, 2001. In particular, he wrote to the editors of the information resource 911truth.org: “It’s worth weighing all the circumstances, and it becomes clear that several Arabs sitting in caves with mobile phones could not organize this.” Literally, the name of the site that became fatal for Donald is translated as “September 11 is true”

New Pearl Harbor

Americans trust their government. But not all. America's dissidents have more than ample reason to doubt that they are always being told the truth. The assassination of President Kennedy is still a mystery with many unknowns. The counting of votes in the last presidential election is shrouded in fog... And the greatest American disaster - Pearl Harbor? Then, in December 1941, the Japanese seemed to be invited to attack the main US naval base. It was necessary to get a reason for war, regardless of the number of their own victims. The similar-scale tragedy of September 11, 2001 also raised a lot of questions.

Four Boeing passenger planes were hijacked within an hour by 19 Arab terrorists armed with cardboard cutters. Suicide pilots took control of the planes and changed course towards New York and Washington. Two Boeings were sent to the twin towers of the World Trade Center. A fire started in the skyscrapers, causing their complete destruction. The third Boeing crashed into the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth plane fought the hijackers, causing the plane to crash in Pennsylvania. It was an attack on America, planned by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, an international terrorist organization made up mostly of Arabs.

This is the generally accepted version of events. It took final shape within a few days after the disaster, becoming official.

Calls from hijacked planes - falsification

There were 256 people in four Boeings. A total of 13 calls were made from the aircraft. The investigation reports include detailed description Arab hijackers, minute-by-minute description of their actions. In the absence of surviving passengers, their “witness testimony” became recordings of telephone conversations, on which the official version is largely based. During the investigation of the tragedy, they were played back in front of relatives, who, in the interests of the investigation, were forbidden to convey the contents of the conversations. However, there was a leak to the press, and Newsweek magazine told what the doomed were talking about...

Among the callers was the wife of US Deputy Attorney General Ted Olson, lawyer Barbara Olson. She called him twice from the plane that terrorists used to attack the Pentagon. To connect with ground services Only passenger Melissa Bowie succeeded - she got through to the dispatcher. The call lasted 4 minutes 2 seconds and ended halfway through the sentence.

Following Newsweek, the conversations were quoted by many publications. The flight attendant's last words just before the plane exploded into a fireball after colliding with a skyscraper: "Oh God, God... I see buildings... Water." Or a very simple phrase: “Hi, Mom, this is Mark Bingham”...

What’s strange here is not even that the person introduces himself to his mother by first and last name, but that he was able to get through at all. At the beginning of the decade, the chance of a successful cell phone connection from a jet airliner flying at normal cruising speed and altitude was about 1 in 100. The chance of two connections was 1 in 10,000. The chance of thirteen was negligible.

As the plane descends, it seems to become easier to call from a mobile phone. However, other factors come into play. At lower altitudes, the jet leaves the same cell within 1-8 seconds. During this time, the phone manages to establish contact with it, but is already in the area of ​​another cell...

These data were confirmed experimentally thanks to A. Dewdney, a professor at two universities. He approached the study of the issue scientifically. He assembled a group of researchers and flew on rented planes three times during 2003 to check how communication was carried out from different phones (in the third experiment, say, five handsets were used - three Motorolas (i95cl, StarTac, Timeport 8767), as well as Audiovox 8300 and Nokia 6310i Dewdney called his research “Project Achilles,” clearly implying that the invincible ancient Greek hero had one weak spot.

Only in 2004-2005, a number of companies began developing equipment to ensure sustainable mobile communications in airliners - Boeings and Airbuses.

The most “slippery” questions

American intelligence agencies had at least 12 intelligence reports about the possible use of airliners as weapons. It was known that buildings would be attacked, and the World Trade Center was the first thing that came to mind. The information was received from 1994 to August 2001, when it became known about Osama bin Laden's plan to send a plane to the US Embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Why was nothing done?

What kind of fire broke out in the White House just between the strikes of the first and second planes? Footage of the fire was broadcast on ABC, and then information about it completely disappeared. Why? And what is the likelihood that such an emergency at the presidential residence could have occurred during this particular time period?

The hijackers underwent aerobatic training, but the instructors considered them incapable of flying even light single-engine aircraft. There was a note about one of the terrorist pilots in the flight school: “he cannot fly on his own.” But the Arabs took control, having received the necessary knowledge and skills from training courses and textbooks, skillfully flew to their targets and clearly hit them. Why were they able to do this? The wingspan of the Boeing 767-300 is 47 meters, and the width of the tower is 63. The difference, as it is not difficult to calculate, is only 15 meters. Just snipers, not kamikazes! These aces acted with such inhuman precision, as if they were being guided by a radio beacon. In the case of the Boeing 757-200 that crashed into the Pentagon, the arithmetic is as follows: the height of the building is 24 meters, and the height of the aircraft itself is more than 13. And this colossus approaches the ram strictly horizontally, creeping above the ground in the city, and hits The US military building is exactly at the height between the first and second floors.

However, the damage to the Pentagon is not serious enough to be the result of a collision with a 115-ton aircraft flying at a speed of 400 to 700 kilometers per hour. On the site in front of the wall, not only was there no debris, but on the grass there were no traces of combustion from fuel from the aircraft tanks. In the surviving photos, the wings are not visible - only a neat hole in the wall. Why? The explosion hit exactly the sector of the Pentagon that was being repaired. The Anti-Terrorism Directorate has already been evicted from there, Command Center navy not yet universed. Among the 125 dead in the Pentagon, there is only one general, and most of them are civilian specialists.

Fragments of the airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania were found 8 miles from the crash site, and local residents there were reports of burning debris falling from the sky. How could this be if the fourth Boeing died when it fell to the ground?

Finally, also on September 11, a military coup occurred in Chile - 28 years before the American tragedy. And 11 years before her, and also on September 11, George Bush Sr., giving a speech to Congress, first uttered the phrase: “New World Order.” But that's just a coincidence.

Works used: J. McMichael, “Muslims Abolish the Laws of Physics” (2001), A.K. Dewdney, Project Achilles Report (2003), Michel Chosudovsky, "Additional Questions to the Official Version: Cell Phone Conversations on 9/11" (Center for Globalization Studies, 2004), Prof. Stephen Jones "Why Did the World Trade Center Really Collapse?" (2006), etc. All of this material - and dozens more - can be found on Serendipity.li (1,100 pages and 8,400 internal links). topwar

Andrey Nazarov

On September 11, 2001, in the United States, suicide bombers from the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger planes - the World Trade Center towers, and two others - the Pentagon and, presumably, the White House or the Capitol. All aircraft except the last one reached their targets. The fourth hijacked plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Victims of the September 11 attacks, including 343 firefighters and 60 police officers. Not only US citizens, but 92 other countries died. 2,753 people were killed in New York, 184 people were killed in the Pentagon, and 40 people crashed in Pennsylvania.

There are also 19 terrorists killed in the attacks, 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were citizens of the United Kingdom. United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon.

At 8:46 a.m. (hereinafter local time), an American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) on Manhattan Island in New York between the 93rd and 99th floors. There were 81 passengers (including five terrorists) and 11 crew members on board the plane.

At 9:03 a.m., a United Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center between the 77th and 85th floors. There were 56 passengers and nine crew members on board the plane.

At 9:37 a.m., an American Airlines Boeing 757 flying from Washington to Los Angeles crashed into the Pentagon building. There were 58 passengers and six crew members on board the plane.

At 10:03 a.m., a United Airlines Boeing 757 flying from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco crashed into a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, near the city of Shanksville, 200 kilometers from Washington. There were 37 passengers and seven crew members on board the plane.

As a result of a severe fire, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 9.59, and the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 10.28.

At 18.16, the 47-story building of the World Trade Center complex, located in close proximity to the World Trade Center towers, collapsed. A fire started in it.

The exact amount of damage caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks is unknown. In September 2006, US President George W. Bush reported that the damage from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was the lowest estimate for the United States.

On November 27, 2002, the United States established an independent commission to investigate the September 11 terrorist attacks (9/11 Commission). In 2004, she released the final report on the investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy. One of the main conclusions of the 600-page document was the recognition that the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks took advantage of the work of the US government and intelligence agencies.

The only person convicted in the case of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States is a French citizen of Moroccan origin, Zacarias Moussaoui. He was arrested in August 2001 after he graduated flight school in Oklahoma and trained on a Boeing 747 simulator in Minnesota. In April 2005, Moussaoui was found guilty of intending to carry out a terrorist attack, which was supposed to be the fifth in a series of tragic events of September 11, 2001. On the personal instructions of Osama bin Laden, he was supposed to hijack a plane and go to ram the White House in Washington - this is what a terrorist talks about.

In May 2006, by a decision of the federal court in Alexandria (Virginia), where the trial took place, Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced.

Six other suspects in the attacks were arrested in 2002 and 2003 and spent several years in CIA prisons and, in 2006, at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In February 2008, the US Department of Defense was accused of murder and war crimes as part of the investigation into the September 11 attacks.

Charges were brought against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who, according to the 9/11 Commission report, is a central figure in the preparation of terrorist attacks in the United States; Yemeni-born Ramzi Binalshib (another spelling Ramzi bin al-Shiba), who provided organizational support to terrorists and transferred money to them; Mohammed al-Qahtani, who, according to investigators, on September 11, 2001 was supposed to become another, the 20th hijacker of four American planes; as well as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi (other spelling Mustafa Ahmad Khausawi) and Walid bin Attash.

Hearings in the case of those accused of involvement in organizing a terrorist attack.

In March 2016, New York District Judge George Daniels entered a default judgment requiring Iran to pay $7.5 billion to relatives and other representatives of those killed at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The judge determined that Iranian authorities must pay another three billion to insurers who covered property damage and other material losses. Earlier, Judge Daniels ruled that Tehran could not prove its non-involvement in providing assistance to the organizers of the terrorist attack, and therefore the Iranian authorities are liable for the damage caused during it.

In September 2016, the US Congress passed a law allowing the heirs of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, whose citizens were the majority of the terrorists who carried out the attacks. Already in early October 2016, an American woman who lost her husband during the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, filed her first lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. In March 2017, relatives of the victims in the United States. In April, it was reported that more than two dozen US insurers had filed a lawsuit against two Saudi Arabian banks and companies linked to Osama bin Laden's family, as well as several charities, for a total of at least $4.2 billion in connection with the attacks.

September 11, 2016 marks 15 years since the terrorist attacks, unprecedented in world history, were committed in the United States. The tragedy claimed the lives of almost three thousand people.

19 terrorists - citizens of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Lebanon - captured 4 passenger airliner. Two planes were sent into the skyscrapers of the World Trade Center in New York, the third airliner crashed into the Pentagon building. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania - its passengers and crew tried to take control of the airliner from terrorists.

The victims of the terrorist attacks were 2,977 people from 92 countries: 246 passengers and crew members of aircraft, 2,606 people in New York, in the World Trade Center buildings and on the ground (of which 341 firefighters and 2 paramedics of the New York Fire Department, 60 police officers and 8 employees "ambulance"), 125 people - in the Pentagon building.

The attacks caused the 110-story twin towers to collapse. Work to clear the World Trade Center site lasted more than eight months. Burning and smoldering in the rubble at the site of the collapsed Twin Towers continued for 99 days before the fire was completely extinguished.

Chronicle of the 9/11 tragedy



The moment the first plane collides with a shopping center skyscraper. Video: Youtube

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Video: Youtube

Passersby on the streets of New York point to the World Trade Center complex. September 11, 2001
People look out of the windows of the North Tower. September 11, 2001
The President of the United States is introduced to schoolchildren, after which George W. Bush begins to read to them the book “The Pet Goat.” At this moment, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card approaches him and reports: “The second plane crashed into the second tower. America is under attack." September 11, 2001
People watch the collapse of one of the World Trade Center towers. September 11, 2001
Rescuers carry a mortally wounded man from the destroyed World Trade Center building. September 11, 2001
Burning World Trade Center towers. September 11, 2001
A helicopter circles the burning Pentagon after one of the hijacked planes crashes into the building. September 11, 2001
A group of firefighters among the rubble of the World Trade Center complex. September 11, 2001
A helicopter circles near one of the World Trade Center towers. September 11, 2001
In the background is the smoldering World Trade Center building. September 11, 2001
Medical staff at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York await victims. September 11, 2001
A firefighter stands among the rubble at the foot of the destroyed World Trade Center complex. September 11, 2001
Damaged wing of the Pentagon. September 11, 2001
A fireman calls for help at the ruins of the World Trade Center. September 11, 2001
Firefighters clear the rubble of the World Trade Center. September 11, 2001
Car wrecks near the World Trade Center complex. September 11, 2001
US President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center in Washington, September 11, 2001
US President George W. Bush speaks at the wreckage of the World Trade Center. September 14, 2001

Survivor Stories

Fred Eichler


On September 11, 2001, 54-year-old insurance agent Fred Eichler walked into his office on the 83rd floor of the World Trade Center North Tower at 8:15 a.m. At 8:40 Fred went to the restroom, but on the way he met four colleagues and they stopped to chat. Through the window they saw a plane flying towards their building. At 8.46 the airliner crashed into a skyscraper, destroying everything in its path. The shock wave threw Fred and his colleagues several tens of meters away. After regaining consciousness, the man called 911 and then called home to talk to his wife, daughters and parents. He was sure that he would never see them again.

Fred walked into the meeting room and was joined by three strangers. The floor was gradually filled with smoke, and streams of water from broken pipes rushed through the corridors and staircases. Those gathered stuffed wet rugs and towels into the crack under the door, trying to stop the smoke. After consulting, they decided not to open the windows, fearing that the air would fan the flames.

At 9.02 there was a second blow: the plane crashed into the neighboring South Tower. Fred and the others decided to try the fire escape. But when they got to the door, the lights in the building went out. They returned to the meeting room and hid under the tables.

At 9:30 Fred saw the light of a flashlight. A firefighter reached their floor. He was able to save the people he found, but he himself died. The rescuer led the survivors to the stairs and advised them to go to another staircase on the 78th floor and go down it. On the 20th floor they heard another impact sound. The whole building shook: it was the South Tower that collapsed. The northern one began to tremble - elevators fell into shafts, stairs swayed. When Fred got outside, he asked someone for a phone and dialed his wife's number. She screamed into the phone: “Run, run, run!” The firefighters and police shouted the same thing. A few minutes later the North Tower collapsed.

Michael Wright

Michael Wright, 30, was on the 81st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when the plane crashed into the building.

At that moment, Michael was in the men's room, where they were just installing a sign asking for the cleanliness of the room. The building shook. When Wright looked out of the toilet into the corridor, he saw fire and heard a woman screaming - his colleague Alicia could not get out of the burning women's toilet. The men broke down the door and were able to pull the woman out.

There was a huge crack in the floor of the corridor, the hall near the elevator was completely destroyed, there was smoke everywhere. Michael began to lead his colleagues to the stairs, people descended as if during a fire drill - in two rows.

“What helped me stay calm on the stairs was the thought of the unreality of what was happening; it seemed like the building couldn’t collapse. Once we had climbed a few floors, we relaxed a little. We knew something bad had happened, but once the fire was thirty floors above, it wasn’t as much of a concern,” Wright recalls. According to him, people passed some floors quickly, others within 10 minutes.

On the 40th floor, Michael and his colleagues met firefighters who advised them to continue going down, assuring them that it was safe there. Having descended below the level of the 20th floor, Wright found himself on the site of the South Tower and realized the seriousness of what was happening: there were corpses everywhere, dozens of bodies.

When the building began to collapse, Wright and his colleagues were at the escalator at one of the exits from the building. A cloud of debris and dust rose, and the air seemed to turn black. Michael tore off his shirt and covered her nose and mouth. Seeing no direction, he crawled, trying to find a way out.

Michael was lucky - he came across a fireman who was able to take him out through the surviving bookstore building.

Reaching the phone, Michael called his wife Jenny.

“I said, ‘Jenny, it’s me.’ There was a groan on the other end of the phone. I said: “I’m alive.” I'm alive. I love you. I love you". We cried and cried. Then the connection was lost,” says Michael Wright.

Frank Razzano

On the morning of September 11, the famous American lawyer Frank Razzano was sleeping in his room on the 19th floor of the Marriott Hotel, located at the foot of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. He woke up from the sound of the first blow, saw papers flying outside the window and returned to bed. A few minutes later a second blow was heard. The plane crashed into the South Tower, which Frank's windows overlooked. Razzano turned on the TV and heard the news. He still thought that there was nothing to worry about, because all the problems were 60 floors above. The firefighters will arrive and everything will be okay.

Frank took a shower, got dressed, packed his things and suddenly felt as if the hotel was being shelled by heavy artillery: the South Tower began to fall apart. Through the window, the lawyer saw mountains of concrete and steel falling from the sky, as if in slow motion. He ran to the opposite side of the room and pressed himself against the wall.

Suddenly the roar stopped. Razzano looked out into the corridor and shouted: “Is anyone alive?” Someone replied: “Come here.” The firefighter directed Razzano to the stairs. While falling, the tower broke the hotel in the middle, but the far staircase remained intact. Razzano followed it to the third floor, and there, together with a group of people, climbed through an opening in the wall to the second floor. A few minutes later, the North Tower collapsed and buried the remains of the hotel. Several lower floors remained intact.

That's where Razzano was. There was nothing to breathe: the air seemed to consist of nothing but dirt and dust. People still managed to find an opening in the destroyed wall of the building, and with the help of a carpet they went down to the mountain of rubble. There, the police helped Razzano get to the doctors.

Pascal Bazzeli


43-year-old design engineer Pascal Bazzeli was in the elevator of the North Tower when the first blow was heard. The elevator stopped on the 44th floor, and Pascal saw people panicking, but decided to go up to his office on the 64th floor. He called his pregnant wife and asked her to turn on the TV and find out what was going on. When she told him what was happening, Buzzelli and his colleagues surrounded the office television and saw the plane fly into a nearby tower. They rushed to the stairs and managed to go down to the 22nd floor when the building began to fall.

Bazzeli turned out to be an incredibly lucky man - curled up in a ball, he rolled down the rubble 15 floors down, like a surfer on a huge wave and, most amazingly, survived with a broken leg. All his colleagues died.

On the way down, Bazzeli lost consciousness and came to his senses three hours later in the ruins of the seventh floor.

Ron DiFrancesco


On the morning of September 11, 37-year-old broker Ron DiFrancesco was working in his office on the 84th floor of the South Tower. At this time, a plane crashed into the North Tower. Seeing the smoke, DiFrancesco decided to get out of the building and left the office. A few minutes after he left, the plane also crashed into the South Tower, between the 77th and 85th floors.

Going down, DiFrancesco met a group of people who began to persuade him to go to the roof - they said that the fire below was too strong, and there should be fresh air above.

Ron tried to go up several floors, but all the doors were closed or locked. The panic intensified, it became more and more difficult to breathe, and DiFrancesco finally decided to go down. He reached the pad in the impact zone and lay on the floor among other gasping people. Panic began to seize him. But some voice in his head, Ron claims, ordered him to run downstairs. Covering his face with his hands, he ran to the first floor, where the guard sent him to another exit and, already running out of the door, DiFrancesco heard a deafening roar above - the building began to collapse.

Seeing the explosion, the broker lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital with burns and a broken spine.

Officials said he was the last person to leave the building before the collapse and one of four surviving Americans who worked above the 81st floor but were able to escape.

John McLaughlin, last of those rescued


When the plane crashed into the South Tower, Sergeant John McLaughlin was several miles from the mall, patrolling the bus terminal in Manhattan. Like many, he headed to the towers that day to help the victims.

Arriving at the scene of the tragedy and not yet knowing the extent of the damage to the World Trade Center, McLaughlin assembled a team of four people - three police officers Antonio Rodriguez, Chris Amoroso, Dominic Petzullo, as well as rookie Will Gimeno.

They were on the ground floor connecting the buildings of the World Trade Center complex when the South Tower collapsed. The police were covered in debris.

“At first I thought I died. I didn’t feel anything: I didn’t see, I didn’t smell, I didn’t hear. There was a ringing silence all around,” recalls John McLaughlin.

Officers Amoroso and Rodriguez were killed immediately. McLaughlin and the two remaining members of his team were trapped. Dominic Petzullo managed to free himself from the rubble and tried to save his colleagues when the North Tower collapsed: he was mortally wounded by debris.

McLaughlin and Will Gimeno, lying under the rubble, heard the voices of rescuers and firefighters.

“I heard screams and shouted too, but it was useless. I said then: “I don’t think they will look for us. There's too much going on up there. They’re already busy,” McLaughlin recalls.

He reached for the radio and left a last message for his family, as well as for Will's wife, who was seven months pregnant.

“I think the moment when Will asked to tell his wife to name their unborn daughter Olivia was the worst. I think that’s when we kind of accepted that we were going to die here,” says Sgt.

The men spent more than 10 hours under the rubble before help arrived. Rescuers were able to pull Jimeno out around 11 p.m. Firefighters only reached McLaughlin on the morning of September 12 - he had to wait another 8 hours for rescue.

The sergeant was sent to the hospital, where doctors at first did not believe that he would survive - the injuries were very serious. Doctors put John in a coma for 6 weeks and he underwent about 30 operations, including skin grafts on his legs. After several years of therapy, he was able to return to a normal life.

John McLaughlin was the last person to be pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center that collapsed as a result of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

Causes and culprits of the tragedy

The al-Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the attack. The large-scale terrorist attack was a consequence of the declared jihad against Jews and Americans; the American policy of supporting Israel, aggression against Iraq, and the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia were also cited as reasons. Al-Qaeda accused America of “plundering” the region, oppressing people by supporting totalitarian regimes, and controlling the policies of the legitimate rulers of Arab countries.


The identities of all the suicide bombers were established - they were citizens of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Lebanon. It turned out that the men were in the United States legally, and some were trained in American flight schools. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden admitted in a video message that he directly supervised the actions of 19 terrorists.

On May 2, 2011, in north-west Pakistan, US intelligence agencies identified “terrorist number one”. Behind the operation to kill bin Laden in live observed by US President Barack Obama and his team.


US President Barack Obama and his team are monitoring the progress of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. Photo: White House press service

In May 2012, the trial of the mastermind and main organizer of the terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was detained in 2003 in Pakistan, began at the Guantanamo Bay base. The verdict is still pending.

The terrorist attack that changed the world

In October 2001, the United States and Great Britain launched a military operation in Afghanistan with the aim of destroying the bases of al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. The operation lasted 13 years - most of the American military and NATO forces left this country only at the end of 2014, but about 8 thousand US Army troops still remain in Afghanistan - to “maintain peace and order.”

9/11 served as a pretext for yet another military conflict. A year after the terrorist attack on the United States, the American government accused Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime of resuming the development of weapons of mass destruction and collaborating with al-Qaeda. On February 5, 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke at a special meeting of the UN Security Council with his famous report. In his speech, Powell said Iraq was working on biological and chemical weapons programs and had two of the three components necessary to produce nuclear weapons.


In 2004, Powell admitted that the data he released was largely inaccurate and sometimes falsified. But it was too late - on March 20, 2003, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq in violation of the UN Charter, and the war was already in full swing. Saddam Hussein was executed in 2006, but coalition forces left Iraq only in 2011.

These wars became one of the reasons for the radicalization of Islamists in the Middle East. After the destruction of bin Laden, al-Qaeda is limited to the tactics of declarative statements, which, as a rule, are not associated with specific terrorist attacks. But one of the group's branches, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, eventually turned into the terrorist organization Islamic State. It was the Islamic State group that captured parts of Libya, Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate on the occupied lands. And it is the Islamic State that is responsible for the high-profile terrorist attacks of recent years.

The material was prepared based on open sources