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That morning, hijackers took over four commercial airliners headed to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The planes took off from Boston, Washington and Newark, New Jersey.
Two of the airliners, American Flight 11 and United Flight 175 were flown into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center.
Another airliner, American Airlines Flight 77, was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.
The fourth airplane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania. The hijackers had hoped to destroy the U.S. Capitol or the White
House.
Crewmembers and passengers attempted to seize control of Flight 93 once it was
learned through cellular phone calls that other hijacked planes had been flown
into buildings earlier that morning.
The hijackers put the plane into a roll to thwart the crew and passengers, and it crashed into an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In New York, three buildings collapsed from the attack. The two tallest towers (1 WTC at about 10:28 and 2 WTC at about 9:59). A third building, (7 WTC) suffered extensive damage when the north tower collapsed. Fires damaged the building further, and it collapsed at around 5:20 p.m.
As confusion mounted, all air traffic was grounded and international flights were forbidden from U.S. airspace for the next three days.
Planes in the air were told to turn back or directed to Mexico or Canada.
The final toll included 2,975 fatalities from the attacks (not including the 19 hijackers).
On board the hijacked airplanes, 246 people perished.
Of the estimated 17,400 people in the World Trade Center towers, 2,752 died. Another 125 died in the Pentagon attack; 55 military members died there and were the only military casualties that day.
On that day, 343 firefighters, 23 NYPD police officers and 37 port authority officers died.
To date, an additional 24 people are listed as missing.
115 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
