More than eight years before the terrible events of 9/11, in February 1993, a 1,500lb bomb exploded underneath New York’s Twin Towers. It had been planted by Al Qaeda.
Six people were killed and more than 1,000 injured, but the World Trade Centre did not fall. Al Qaeda concluded that only a more ingenious attack would bring down the iconic towers.
In 1996, from his base in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and his right-hand man, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, began planning ‘the Planes Operation’. Four teams, each with a pilot and a group of ‘muscle men’, would hijack airliners and fly them into the Twin Towers and other symbolically significant American targets.
In 2001, news of the plot leaked: a CIA intelligence report warned that something ‘very, very, very, very’ big was imminent. As the CIA boss George Tenet said later: ‘The system was blinking red.’
They knew something terrible was about to happen — but they didn’t know how to stop it.
In 1996, from his base in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and his right-hand man, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, began planning ‘the Planes Operation’
Pictured: Taliban fighters on top of a Humvee parade along a road in Kandahar on September 1, 2021, after the US pulled its troops out of Afghanistan
Tuesday, Sept 11, 2001
4am: American Airlines Flight attendant Amy Sweeney is getting ready to go to work with a heavy heart. She’s spent the summer with her two children and today is the first day she won’t be putting her daughter, Anna, onto the bus for her kindergarten.
In Room 308 of the Milner Hotel, Boston, Egyptian-born Mohamed Atta is preparing to check out. He also has a plane to catch. In his luggage he puts his copy of the Koran, a folding knife, pepper spray and a videotape on how to fly Boeing jets.
6.30am: 1,000 miles away in Florida, President George W. Bush is having an early morning run in the dark around a golf course followed by his team of Secret Service agents. This morning he is due to meet children and parents at a nearby elementary school.
In Britain, the President’s friend and ally Tony Blair is on a train to Brighton with his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, putting the finishing touches to his speech to the TUC conference. It tackles the economy, Europe and the issue of asylum-seekers.
6.45am: At Boston’s Logan International Airport, Mohamed Atta and four Saudi nationals are checking in for Flight 11 bound for Los Angeles. Atta has been personally selected by Bin Laden to be the mission’s commander, but he is nervous.
The check-in clerk notices he is sweating profusely — ‘his forehead was drenched’. Because of their nationality and travel movements, three of the men are identified by the computer as potentially suspect and their bags X-rayed, but nothing suspicious is found.
In 2001, news of the plot leaked: a CIA intelligence report warned that something ‘very, very, very, very’ big was imminent. As the CIA boss George Tenet said later: ‘The system was blinking red.’ Pictured: Explosions rock the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after the towers were hit by two planes
6.50am: Nearby, United Airlines representative Gail Jawahir is repeating the standard security questions about luggage to two nervous UAE nationals, as they are having trouble understanding her. They are part of a five-man Al Qaeda unit all with tickets for Los Angeles Flight 175.
In New York, lawyer Edie Lutnick receives a call from a client cancelling their 8.30am meeting. She goes back to sleep — now she won’t have to go to her office at the World Trade Centre.
7.00am: The tall figure of Stephen Mulderry makes his way through the New York streets on his way to the World Trade Centre where he works as an equity trader. On any given day, 50,000 workers occupy the building’s famous Twin Towers which soar a quarter of a mile into the sky.
In 1968, opponents of the proposed buildings released an advert showing a passenger jet flying into the North Tower. Outraged structural engineers claimed each tower was built to withstand a direct hit by a Boeing 707.
7.15am: At Logan Airport, Flight 11 is being loaded with fuel and baggage, so Amy Sweeney takes the opportunity to call her husband Mike to say how sorry she is not to have seen their daughter off to kindergarten. He reassures her saying there’ll be plenty of other opportunities. In the first class cabin, Lynn Angell and her husband, David, the creator and producer of TV hit comedy series Frasier, take their seats next to Mohamed Atta.
7.30am: Four hundred miles away at Washington Dulles Airport, Saudi brothers Nawaf and Salem al Hazmi run into the terminal, late to catch American Airlines Flight 77. The men have only one small bag and Salem is behaving strangely. ‘He was grinning, he was smiling, and he was dancing back and forth,’ recalled check-in clerk Vaughn Allex.
Nawaf sets off two metal detectors, so a security guard checks him with a hand-wand, but it picks up nothing suspicious.
At 9.08am at the Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, President Bush is reading to a class of children, watched by reporters. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card whispers in his ear: ‘America is under attack’
7.40am: A few moments before Flight 11 is due to leave the gate, American Airlines manager Michael Woodward comes aboard for a final check. Mohamed Atta stares at him and a chill passes through Woodward; something about the man doesn’t feel right, but that’s no reason to stop the flight.
8.14am: Just 15 minutes into Flight 11’s journey, the hijack begins when Atta and the other terrorists spray mace into the first-class cabin. They claim they have a bomb, to force the passengers to the rear of the plane.
Passenger Daniel Lewin, a former Israeli commando, tries to intervene but has his throat cut by one of the terrorists. They then force their way into the cockpit, kill or disable the two pilots and Atta takes over the controls.
8.19am: At the Pentagon in Washington, headquarters of the U.S. military, fire-fighter and Vietnam veteran Alan Wallace is enjoying the early morning sunshine as he works on his fire truck. At midday President Bush will return from Florida and he wants to make sure everything is in order.
At the rear of Flight 11, attendant Betty Ong uses a seatback Airfone to call the American Airlines office; it is the first eye-witness account of the terror of 9/11. She says calmly: ‘The cockpit’s not answering. Somebody’s stabbed in business class and I think there’s mace . . . we can’t breathe. I think we’re getting hijacked.’ Betty tells them two flight attendants have also been stabbed.
At 9.03am in London, Cantor Fitzgerald brokers are on their squawk boxes shouting to their U.S. colleagues. ‘Another plane has gone into the South Tower! You need to get out!’
8.24am: Mohamed Atta tries to pacify the passengers over the cockpit intercom but doesn’t know how to operate it, so only Boston Air Traffic Control hears him.
The first part of his message is unclear, but then he says: ‘Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you’ll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.’
At the rear of the plane, flight attendant Amy Sweeney is discreetly on the phone to manager Michael Woodward, who 45 minutes earlier had been on the plane for final checks. She tells him the seat numbers of the hijackers and says the plane is ‘flying erratically’. Boston Air Traffic Control watch the Boeing 767 turn suddenly south towards New York City.
8.42am: At Newark airport, United Airlines Flight 93 takes off for San Francisco. On board are five attendants, 32 passengers, three Saudi terrorists and their Lebanese leader, Ziad Jarrah. He is in seat 1B, closest to the cockpit. The terrorists are a man short as one was refused entry in August by a suspicious immigration inspector.
9.15am: On Floor 78 of the South Tower, a wing of United Flight 175 has caused carnage to a large ‘sky lobby’ that links the upper and lower elevators. When the plane hit, there were already more than 200 people there waiting to evacuate
8.45am: On United Airlines Flight 175, the seatbelt light goes off and the hijackers leap up, stab a flight attendant, storm the cockpit and kill the pilots.
Meanwhile, Flight 11 is approaching New York at high speed. Amy Sweeney tells manager Michael Woodward on the ground: ‘Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent. We are all over the place.’ He asks her to look out the window to find out where they are. ‘I see water. I see buildings. We are flying very, very low.’ After a pause, she says quietly: ‘Oh, my God. We are way too low!’
Travelling at over 460 mph, Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. 10,000 gallons of fuel explode in a fireball, causing the building to lean then right itself, and a fireball shoots down the elevators and explodes. Hundreds are killed by the impact and more than 1,300 workers are trapped on the floors above.
Bond trader Michael Wittenstein is on a call to a client and hangs up when the building is hit. Always polite, he calls the client back to apologise: ‘I believe there was an explosion in the boiler room.’ Michael is due to be married on October 20; he doesn’t survive.
9.20am: At the Emma Booker Elementary School President Bush delivers a hastily written statement: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a difficult day for America. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Centre in an apparent attack on our country.’ The parents and community leaders present gasp. ‘Terrorism against our nation will not stand.’ Pictured: President Bush speaking to Vice President Dick Cheney onboard Air Force One on September 11, 2001
8.49am: On news channel CNN an advert for a money-lending company is interrupted and live images of the burning North Tower appear on the screen, a massive hole in its upper floors.
The presenter says: ‘This just in, you’re obviously looking at some very disturbing live shots . . . clearly something devastating happening there.’ Within minutes BBC, ITN and Sky take the coverage.
8.50am: On Flight 77, the terrorists use box cutters to get into the cockpit and knives to kill and stab the crew. Their target is the Pentagon.
People on the upper floors of the North
