American Airlines Flight 11
"Flight 11" redirects here. For the Continental Airlines flight that was bombed in 1962, see Continental Airlines Flight 11.American Airlines Flight 11 was the first flight used in the
September 11, 2001 attacks. It was an
American Airlines flight aboard a
Boeing 767-223ER aircraft, registration number . Flight 11 regularly flew from
Logan International Airport in
East Boston,
Massachusetts, to
Los Angeles International Airport. On
September 11,
2001, the aircraft on this route was
hijacked; the hijackers crashed into the
North Tower of the
World Trade Center in
New York City.
|
AA 11 flight path from Boston to New York City |
The flight was regularly scheduled for takeoff at 7:45 a.m.
[9/11 Investigation (PENTTBOM), FBI, national Press Release, September 2001] But boarding was running behind schedule. At 7:45 a.m., lead hijackers Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were still boarding the plane. In the rush, Atta's bags were not loaded onto the plane in time.
[(7:45 a.m.): Hijack Suspects' Bags Contain Airline Uniforms] Ultimately running 14 minutes late, the flight finally took off from Logan International Airport at 7:59 a.m. The plane is believed to have been hijacked at 8:14 a.m. At around that time, when the plane stopped responding to
air traffic control, the
Federal Aviation Administration had thought the plane had been hijacked. By 8:25, there was no doubt.
There are believed to have been five hijackers:
*
Mohamed Atta al Sayed (Egyptian) - the ringleader and pilot, was in seat 8D. :* Someone claiming to be
Waleed al-Shehri - sat in seat 2B:*
Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian) - sat next to Waleed, in seat 2A:*
Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian) - had earlier flown with Atta to Logan Airport from
Portland, Maine:*
Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian) - had paid in cash that day, sat in seat 10B
Flight attendants
Madeline Amy Sweeney and
Betty Ong supplied information by phone on what happened. According to them, three people – two attendants and a passenger – were stabbed or had their throats slashed by the hijackers. The passenger,
Daniel Lewin, a notable
Internet entrepreneur, had also previously served as an officer in the elite
Sayeret Matkal unit of the
Israeli military. A 2002
FAA memo referenced Lewin as possibly being killed by
Satam al-Suqami after he attempted to stop the hijacking.
The first-class area had been sequestered by the surviving crew, and the rest of the passengers had been led to believe that a medical emergency was taking place in the first class area. The hijackers also used
mace,
pepper spray or some other
aerosol spray-based
irritant to discourage entry into the first class area and the cockpit. One passenger reported her eyes were burning and that she was having trouble breathing. The hijackers claimed to have a bomb, although there is no evidence they actually had an explosive device.
At 8:46:40 a.m., Flight 11 was deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center between the 93rd to the 99th floors. This was the first crash in the attacks of the day. All on board (11 crew, 76 regular passengers, and 5 hijackers) were killed.
1366 people were at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower (1 WTC): according to the Commission Report hundreds were killed instantly by the impact [
1], the rest were trapped and died later.
Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st-105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 685 employees, considerably more than any other employer.
Many rescue workers (400 for the two towers together, most of them of the
FDNY), died when the tower collapsed.
Plane passengers included:
*
David Angell, American television producer (b.
1946)
*
Berry Berenson, American actress and photographer (b.
1948)
*
Charles Edward Jones, a military astronaut (b.
1952)
Jules Naudet, a French cameraman, [
2] and
Pavel Hlava, a Czech immigrant, both filmed the crash of the plane into the building.
Although the impact itself caused extensive structural damage, it was the long-lasting fire, starting with burning jet fuel, which is blamed for the structural failure of the North Tower. Many have speculated that this is why the hijackers chose to use this fully fueled transcontinental flight. The centralized-support design (in the center core and exterior walls, instead of throughout) of the towers also contributed to the collapse. In a later recording,
Osama bin Laden seems to take credit for the attack and states that he did not expect the towers would collapse.
See also September 11, 2001 attacks timeline for the day of the attacks.All times are in New York Time (
EDT or ).
Tuesday,
September 11,
2001.
6:02: Mohammed Atta flies Colgan Air (
Portland International Jetport,
Portland, Maine to
Logan International Airport,
Boston,
Massachusetts), along with
Abdulaziz al-Omari. It is reported that Atta broke into a fight in the parking lot of Portland International Jetport.
6:45: Atta calls another hijacker to confirm the attacks are on while sitting on Logan International Airport.
7:59: Flight 11 takes off from Logan International Airport; it is bound for Los Angeles, California.
8:13: the last radio communication is made from Flight 11. A recording of what is believed to be Atta's voice says, "Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet." The flight path begins to stray away from the scheduled one and moves southwards. It is also reported that Flight 11's
transponder signal is turned off at this time.[
3][
4][
5].
8:19:
Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11 [
6] alerts American Airlines of a hijacking in progress.
8:20: The FAA's Boston Center flight controllers decide that Flight 11 has probably been hijacked.
8:21 Flight 11's transponder signal is turned off but the plane remains on radar screens. (Prior to the 9/11 Commission's report, news organizations reported this time as 8:13 or immediately thereafter.)
8:25: Boston Center flight controllers alert other flight control centers regarding Flight 11; however,
NORAD is not yet alerted.
8:37: Flight 175 confirms sighting of hijacked Flight 11 to flight controllers, 10 miles (16 km) to its south.
8:37:52: Boston Center control notifies NEADS (Northeast American Defense Sector), the northeast sector of NORAD, of the hijacking of Flight 11. The controller requests military help to intercept the aircraft.
8:42: The FAA's New York Center requests information about Flight 11 over the radio. Flight 175 responds:
"Ah, we heard a suspicious transmission on our departure out of Boston, ah, with someone, ah, it sounded like someone keyed the mikes and said ah everyone stay in your seats." New York Center acknowledges and says it will pass the information on. Shortly after Flight 175 is itself hijacked and also begins to move southwards.
8:46: Two
F-15 fighter jets are scrambled from Otis Air Force Base in
Massachusetts, intended to intercept flight 11. Because Flight 11's transponder is off,
United States Air Force pilots do not know which direction to travel to meet the plane. NEADS spends the next several minutes watching their radar screens in anticipation of Flight 11 returning a radar contact.
8:46:40: Flight 11 crashes at roughly 490 mph (790 km/h) into the north side of the north tower of the
World Trade Center, between floors 93 and 99. (Many early accounts gave times between 8:45 and 8:50). The aircraft enters the tower mostly intact. It plows to the building core, severing all three
gypsum-encased stairwells, dragging combustibles with it. A massive shock wave travels down to the ground and up again. The combustibles and the remnants of the aircraft are ignited by the burning fuel. Since the building lacks a traditional full cage frame and depends almost entirely on the strength of a narrow structural core running up the center, the fire at the center of the impact zone is in a position to compromise the integrity of all internal columns. Two home video cameras are known to have recorded the impact. People below the severed stairwells in the north tower start to evacuate; no-one above the impact zone is able to do so.
8:46 to
10:28: At least 100 people (some accounts say as many as 250), primarily in the north tower, trapped by fire and smoke in the upper floors, jump to their deaths. There is some evidence that large central portions of the floor near the impact zone in the north tower collapsed soon after the plane hit, perhaps convincing some people that total collapse was imminent. One person at street level, firefighter Daniel Thomas Suhr, is hit by a jumper and dies. No form of airborne evacuation is attempted as smoke is too dense for a successful landing on the roof of either tower.
8:49:34: The first news and radio organizations report an explosion or incident at the World Trade Center.
CNN breaks into a commercial at 8:49. CNN headlines first read 'World Trade Center disaster.'
Carol Lin, who was the first anchor to break the news of the attacks, said:
"Yeah. This just in. You're looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan. That is once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center." Later, Sean Murtagh, CNN vice-president of finance, in an on-air phone call, said from his office in the CNN New York bureau that a large passenger commercial jet hit the World Trade Center.
8:50:
NEADS is notified that a plane has struck the World Trade Center as they continue to locate the flight on radar.
8:53: The F-15s at Otis Air Force Base are airborne. Still lacking an intercept vector to Flight 11 (and not aware that it has already been crashed), they are sent to military controlled airspace off Long Island and ordered to remain in a holding pattern until between 9:09 and 9:13.
10:28:31: The north tower of the World Trade Center
collapses from the top down, as if being peeled apart. Probably due to the destruction of the gypsum-encased stairwells on the impact floors (most skyscraper stairwells are encased in reinforced concrete), no one above the impact zone in the north tower survives.
The Marriott Hotel, located at the base of the two towers, is also destroyed. This second collapse (the south tower had already collapsed) is also viewed live on television and heard on radio.
The
flight route designation (flight number) for future flights on the same route at the same takeoff time was changed to "Flight 25" to disassociate other planes from the one used in the attack and out of respect for those who had died in the attack. An American flag now flies on the jet bridge that Flight 11 departed from at Logan Airport.
American Airlines Flight 25 also changed the aircraft used on the route. Instead of using a
Boeing 767-223ER, a
Boeing 757-200 is used.
Seth MacFarlane, creator of
Family Guy, was booked on Flight 11, but due to a mix up, missed the plane. His travel agent told him the flight departed at 8:15 instead of 7:45, and he arrived just after the plane had boarded. [
7]
The
pilot on the flight was
John Ogonowski, 52, of Dracut, Massachusetts, and the
first officer was
Thomas McGuinness.
Initial suspects were:
*
Adnan Bukhari *
Ameer Bukhari *
Amer Kamfar*
The Final 9/11 Commission Report *
AA Flight 11: Minute by Minute *
American Airlines Flight 11 manifest
