What to Know
- More than 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, when Islamic terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial planes and flew directly into the lifeblood of our nation. It was the deadliest terror attack in history.
- The vast majority of those victims came from lower Manhattan; nearly 2,800 people died when two jets crashed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. Both collapsed.
- When the first plane hit, an estimated 17,400 people were in the two towers. No one survived above the impact zone in the North Tower; 18 above the South’s escaped.
- Six moments of silence are observed on the anniversary. Four mark the moment each hijacked flight crashed, and two mark the collapses of the South and North towers.
- Decades later, the tortuous legacy continues to claim lives. The WTC Health Program says 9,000+ people have died from 9/11-linked health problems, triple the casualties from the attacks.
- Those after-effects jumped front and center this week when the city released 170K pages of never-before-public documents suggesting officials knew of air quality risks.
Twenty-five years ago today, Islamic extremists hijacked four U.S. commercial airplanes in the name of al-Qaida, flying two into the soaring towers of the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and crashing one in a Pennsylvania field amid a heroic passenger rebellion.
Sept. 11, 2001 marked the deadliest terror attacks in human history, killing nearly 3,000 people. More than 3/4 of the victims died amid the disaster in lower Manhattan. Decades later, 9/11’s legacy continues to claim lives. Today and always, we remember them.
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