On September 11, 2001, four commercial planes were hijacked and crashed at three different locations across the eastern United States. Two hit the World Trade Center towers in New York City, one struck the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and one went down in a field in rural Pennsylvania. Together, the attacks killed 2,976 people.
American Airlines Flight 11: World Trade Center North Tower
The first plane to strike was American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 that departed Boston’s Logan International Airport bound for Los Angeles. At 8:46 a.m., it was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The plane carried 92 people, including five hijackers. All aboard were killed, along with hundreds of people inside the tower.
The North Tower burned for 102 minutes before collapsing at 10:28 a.m. It was the second tower to fall, even though it was struck first. The longer burn time was partly because the plane hit higher on the building (floors 93 through 99), leaving more intact structure below to bear the load temporarily.
United Airlines Flight 175: World Trade Center South Tower
United Airlines Flight 175, also a Boeing 767 out of Boston Logan headed for Los Angeles, was the second plane to hit. It struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., an impact captured on live television as cameras were already trained on the burning North Tower. The plane carried 65 people, including five hijackers.
Because Flight 175 hit lower on the building (floors 77 through 85), the South Tower had more weight bearing down on the damaged section. It collapsed first, at 9:59 a.m., just 56 minutes after impact. The collapse of both towers destroyed or severely damaged multiple surrounding buildings and sent massive dust clouds through the streets of lower Manhattan. The death toll at the World Trade Center site, including those on both planes, was approximately 2,750 people, making it by far the deadliest of the three crash locations.
American Airlines Flight 77: The Pentagon
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757, departed Washington Dulles International Airport headed for Los Angeles. At 9:37 a.m., it was flown into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. All 64 people on the plane were killed, along with 125 military and civilian personnel inside the building, for a total of 184 deaths at that site. Among the passengers were three 11-year-olds on a school trip.
The Pentagon, as the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, was one of the most symbolically significant targets struck that day. The western wedge that took the impact had recently been renovated with blast-resistant windows and reinforced walls, which likely reduced the death toll. The building was repaired within a year, and the Pentagon Memorial now marks the exact spot where the plane hit, with 184 individual memorial benches honoring each victim.
United Airlines Flight 93: Shanksville, Pennsylvania
United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 flying from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, California, crashed into an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. All 44 people aboard were killed, including four hijackers. There were no ground casualties.
Flight 93 is the only hijacked plane that did not reach its intended target, which investigators later determined was either the U.S. Capitol or the White House in Washington, D.C. The plane departed 25 minutes late that morning, a delay that proved critical. By the time the hijackers took control, passengers and crew had already learned about the other crashes through phone calls to family members and friends on the ground. Knowing the plane was being used as a weapon, a group of passengers and crew members launched a coordinated effort to retake the cockpit. The plane crashed in the field during that struggle.
The crash site in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania is now the Flight 93 National Memorial, operated by the National Park Service. The impact created a crater in the soft ground of a reclaimed strip mine. A large boulder marks the point of impact, and a wall of white marble panels bears the names of the 40 passengers and crew members (the four hijackers are not included).
The Full Scope of the Attacks
All four flights were transcontinental routes departing from East Coast airports, chosen because they carried heavy fuel loads for their long journeys to California. The hijackers used that fuel as an accelerant, turning the planes themselves into weapons. The attacks unfolded over the span of 77 minutes, from the first impact at 8:46 a.m. to the final crash at 10:03 a.m.
The total death toll across all four sites was 2,976 victims, not counting the 19 hijackers. Thousands more were injured. In the years that followed, thousands of first responders and residents near the World Trade Center developed serious illnesses from exposure to toxic dust at Ground Zero, adding to the long-term human cost of the attacks.