The Guardian - 9/11. Ten Years On

On 11 September 2001 two hijacked airliners smash into the World Trade Center in New York. A third hits the Pentagon, and a fourth crashes in Pennsylvania, apparently out of control. The world watches as the twin towers collapse, killing thousands. President George Bush promises retaliation: Freedom itself was attacked this morning and I assure you freedom will be defended. In the UK, Tony Blair promises to stand shoulder to shoulder with America.

Alex Fuchs/AFP

Bush on war footing as hijack jet outrage leaves thousands dead

President forced out of Washington as terrorists plunge passenger planes into World Trade Center and Pentagon

Julian Borger and Duncan Campbell, 12 September 2001

President George Bush was last night struggling to exert some control over a shell-shocked United States from a special command center in Nebraska after the country sustained its worst attack since Pearl Harbour.

Three hijacked passenger airliners plunged into famous American landmarks, destroying the twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center, seriously damaging the Pentagon, in Washington, and killing thousands of people. Last night a state of emergency was declared in Washington.

Rescue workers in New York and Washington were still desperately searching among the rubble for survivors and pulling out bodies. There was speculation that the death toll could run as high as 20,000 in what was without doubt the worst terrorist assault ever inflicted on the US.

Ten thousand people normally go to work in each tower of the World Trade Center every day, with another 5,000 visiting the site. The Pentagon offices which took the brunt of the impact were filled with senior defence department officials.

A fourth hijacked passenger jet, possibly heading for the presidents Camp David retreat in Maryland, crashed in Pennsylvania, 80 miles south of Pittsburgh.

President Bush landed at the home of Strategic Air Command, at Offutt air force base in Nebraska, as US forces around the world were put on alert. The president was then flown to an undisclosed location in Nebraska for an emergency national security meeting, in line with contingency plans for times of war. Earlier, he promised that the US would hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly attacks.

The resolve of our great nation is being tested, Mr Bush said. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass this test.

Congress was also evacuated to an undisclosed location.

Ive been in regular contact with the vice president, secretary of defence, the national security team and my cabinet. We have taken all appropriate security precautions to protect the American people, Mr Bush said. Our military at home and around the world is on high-alert status and we have taken the necessary security precautions to continue the functions of the government.

Aircraft carriers and battleships were hastily deployed off the east coast of the country and F-16 fighter jets circled above the White House as smoke billowed from the Pentagon, the largest building in the world, and drifted across the Potomac river. Military planes also patrolled the air above New York.

They were the only planes in the skies. For the first time in US aviation history, all commercial flights were grounded.

The US vice president Dick Cheney was reported to be in war room in the basement of the White House from where he was coordinating the administrations response to the terrorist attacks.

Speculation immediately focused on a coordinated attack from a Middle Eastern terror organisation, and in particular, Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of pursuing a bloody campaign against the US in recent years.

The coordinated attack was clearly meticulously planned and apparently involved trained pilots able to take over the controls of passenger jets and ready to give their own lives and sacrifice scores of others.

All four flights that were hijacked were at the start of journeys to California, which meant they were fully loaded with fuel. Security experts believe that this may have been part of the plan of attack as the fuel would guarantee a much larger and more extensive explosion than would have otherwise happened.

The United States is unlikely ever to be the same again in the wake of this onslaught. The country was hit, with great deliberation, at the very core of its economic and military power, presumably a message to Americans that they will never be able to consider themselves safe.

As the smoke was rising from New York and Washington, recriminations had already begun over the nations anti-terrorist defences, and what implications the attack would have for the Bush administrations flagship project, the National Missile Defence system, designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles from rogue states and terror groups. It is unlikely such a system would have been of much use against a band of suicidal hijackers.

The first impact came at 8.58am when an United Airlines jet, a Boeing 767 carrying 56 passengers bound from Boston to Los Angeles, flew into the World Trade Centers north tower, punching a gaping hole and setting off a firestorm which soon consumed the top third of the building.

Sixteen minutes later, as bystanders and television cameras were fixed on the blazing tower, a second plane, an American Airlines flight also heading to Los Angeles from Boston, plunged into the second tower, sending flames blasting out of the other side.

Soon afterwards both towers, where thousands of business staff and city employees worked, collapsed, permanently changing the New York city skyline. While New York descended into chaos, Washington was hit at the symbolic center of US military power.

American Airlines flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 58 passengers, flew in low over the Virginia suburb of Arlington and plunged into the south-west face of the Pentagon, triggering the collapse of a section of the building.

There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over, said Afework Hagos, a computer programmer who was on his way to work. It was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in.

In Pennsylvania, United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 en route from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, crashed about 80 miles south of Pittsburgh. Its flight-path some reports said it was heading to the presidents retreat at Camp David, Maryland triggered fresh alerts in the capital, before the plane went down.

Emergency services were reported to have received a call from one of the planes passengers who had locked himself in the toilet, and who said the plane had been hijacked.

The US placed its military forces and facilities in the Gulf region and Europe on the highest level of alert, called Delta, the code for an imminent threat. We are now on Delta, the whole world is on Delta, a US official said.

The US navy sent aircraft carriers to the New York area and placed battleships along the east coast in preparation for other possible attacks.

This is an act of war, theres no doubt about it, said James Kallstrom, a former deputy director of the FBI.

The borders to Mexico and Canada were closed and the US coast guard halted vessels approaching the coast to carry out searches as a state of siege settled over the country.

Freeways near airports were closed and military aircraft flew over major cities, adding to the sense of a country at war. Prayer sessions were called in churches throughout the country.