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Twin Towers Collapse, Pentagon Hit by Hijacked Planes
WASHINGTON, Sept 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A total of three apparently hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center buildings in New York, causing both the towers to ultimately collapse, and U.S. military headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, Tuesday in what looked like a premeditated and coordinated attack.
Fifty thousand people work in the Trade Center towers, and the loss of life is expected to number in the thousands. The two 110-story towers collapsed, one followed by the other 15 minutes later.
This IslamOnline correspondent was at the scene of the Pentagon attack roughly five minutes after it occurred while on the way to work. At the time, traffic had not been blocked or diverted as debris was thrown onto the highway, a good fifty yards form the building.
One entire large section of the western wall of the Pentagon, close to where the helipads are located and a major highway, was engulfed in flames. The sandstone walls were black with ash as 20-foot flames lashed skywards.
Traffic northbound was at a standstill, while traffic southbound, away from metro Washington, was light and unimpeded, although one had to dodge debris thrown onto the road.
Early after the attacks, U.S. President Bush George W. Bush called the assaults an "apparent terrorist attack," and ordered a full-scale investigation.
"Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country,'' he said, speaking before schoolchildren, teachers and parents at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, where he had planned to talk about education.
"I have spoken to the vice president, to the governor of New York, to the director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and the families and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act,'' said Bush.
He called for a moment of silence. "May God bless the victims, their families and America,'' Bush said, his voice breaking with emotion.
It is too early to speculate on responsibility for the attacks.
In New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said there had been a "horrendous number of lives lost" in the assault on his city.
American Airlines said two of its jets carrying a total of 156 people were lost, while United Airlines said one of its planes had crashed in Pennsylvania with unknown loss of life and another was missing.
International flights coming into the U.S. were diverted to Canada, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shut down all flights in the United States, as all commercial planes in the United States were grounded, an unprecedented step by the FAA..
Hospitals in New York were overwhelmed with patients.
"Hundreds of people are burned from head to toe,'' said Dr. Steven Stern at St. Vincent's Hospital in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of lower Manhattan.
All government buildings in Washington were evacuated, including the White House and other tall buildings across the country.
Cell phone communication on the East Coast was cut as well.
Early reports said all three planes used in the attacks were hijacked, one of them from Boston and one from Washington. It was not immediately known who flew the planes and what happened to them.
The day began around 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) in New York when the first plane plowed into the south tower of New York's World Trade Center, as thousands of workers were streaming into the building to begin their day.
It opened a huge hole near the top of the building. Two hours later, the whole building in which thousands of people work, collapsed on itself in a huge cloud of smoke and fire.
TV stations caught the second plane plowing into the second of the twin towers, exploding in a fireball a few minutes after the first impact. That building caved in about an hour after the first.
Shortly afterward, a third plane crashed into or near the Pentagon in Washington, throwing people off their feet inside the building and setting off a massive fire.
News organizations reported another explosion at the State Department, but that was later denied. Other reports spoke of another hijacked plane heading toward the capital.
All government buildings including the White House and the Capitol and the CIA were evacuated.
One official speculated of the Pentagon attack, "It's clear that this is terrorist-related, we're not sure who is responsible.''
One of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center was American Airlines' Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, said Lori Bassani, spokesperson for American's flight attendants union.
The other was flight 77, a Boeing 757, operating from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles.
United said flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco, a Boeing 757, had crashed south of Pittsburgh. The airline said it had no other details of how many people were on board.
United also said it was "deeply concerned'' about another flight, No. 175, which departed from Boston. The airline said it had no details of that flight.
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