9/11

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, terrorists from the Islamic extremist group Al Qaeda hijacked four commercial aircraft in a coordinated attack against targets in the United States. Two planes were intentionally crashed in New York City. A third hit the government’s military and defence headquarters at the Pentagon. The fourth jet plummeted into a field when passengers fought back against hijackers and prevented it from reaching a target in Washington. The atrocity, which became widely known as 9/11, saw almost 3,000 people from 93 different countries lose their lives. Why did Al Qaeda target the United States? How did they devise a plan to use aircraft as weapons? And why did it take almost a decade to hunt down the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden? This is a Short History Of 9/11. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Garrett Graff, historian and author of The Only Plane in the Sky, an Oral History of 9/11. Written by Jo Furniss | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Mirianna Pitman-Latham | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact check: Sean Coleman Unlock the next two episodes of Short History Of… right now by subscribing to Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network, including Real Survival Stories and Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to get started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:43Speaker 02

  It's September the 11th, 2001. A stunning, early autumn morning in New York City, where a woman is out for an invigorating run. The air is crisp, washed clean by heavy rain the previous day.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  The cornflower-blue sky is uninterrupted to its horizon.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  It's just after 8:30 when the runner passes a ferry port in Lower Manhattan.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Here, commuters stream off boats into the financial district. Office workers in shirt sleeves soak up the sun before plunging into the shadowed canyons of city streets that are hemmed in by vast skyscrapers.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  The jogger opts to head home along the sunny path beside the Hudson River.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  In Rockefeller Park, her path is blocked by two cyclists who have stopped on the sidewalk and appear to be staring into the sky.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Slipping off her Walkman headphones, she becomes aware of a noise: an aircraft, but one much larger than the small jets and helicopters that are always zipping over Manhattan.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  She turns and follows the cyclist's gaze, and her breath catches in her throat.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Coming towards them along the Hudson is a passenger jet, nose tilted slightly down, its engines groaning. She makes out the red, white, and blue livery of American Airlines as it powers overhead, its vast shadow turning her cold for the brief seconds it takes to pass.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  She wonders if the pilot is attempting to land on water, but then the aircraft tilts and drifts over land, heading straight towards downtown Manhattan.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  There, two towers dominate the skyline: the World Trade Center. The plane doesn't deviate from its course, and a second later, it punches into the sunlit glass face of the North Tower at 466 miles per hour.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  A massive cloud of dust and debris bellows from high in the building, followed by a vast, orange fireball. The woman takes a step back. Black smoke unfurls into the sky, and what looks like white confetti swirls on the gentle wind. It takes her a moment to understand what it is: a ticker-tape of paperwork being blown out through the broken windows of the offices.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  The cyclists cling to each other in shock, but the runner can't watch. She pushes past them and flees, her mind empty except for the thought of going home.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Feet pounding, she passes frozen people in Hudson Park, all staring back the way she came, hands on heads in shock or crying. Others gather dogs onto leashes and rush away. A firetruck races along the highway, sirens and horns blaring, firefighters' heads craning out of the windows to take in the emergency that confronts them. The runner only slows when she reaches her street and waits to cross up the lights, but as she does so, a second explosion sounds.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  She cannot see the South Tower, but another cloud tells her what has happened. This is the moment she realizes. It is no accident. A second aircraft has crashed into the World Trade Center.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  America is under attack.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  On the morning of September the 11th, 2001, terrorists from the Islamic extremist group Al Qaeda hijacked four commercial aircraft in a coordinated attack against targets in the United States. Two planes were intentionally crashed in New York City. A third hit the government's military and defense headquarters at the Pentagon. The fourth jet plummeted into a field when passengers fought back against hijackers and prevented it from reaching a target in Washington, possibly the Capitol or the White House. The atrocity, which became widely known as 9/11, saw almost 3,000 people from 93 different countries lose their lives, the most devastating attack on US territory

• 5:16Speaker 02

  since Pearl Harbor in the Second World War.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  But why did Al Qaeda target the United States? How did they devise a plan to use aircraft as weapons? And why did it take almost a decade to hunt down the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is A Short History of 9/11.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  To most Americans and millions watching around the world, the events of the 11th of September 2001 seem like a random act of terror, a literal bolt out of the blue. At the start of a new millennium, the US stands alone as a world superpower. Many people in the West believe its ideological struggles of the 20th century, especially the Cold War, are over. But slowly, over the last two decades, a new threat has been emerging.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  In the 1980s, thousands of Islamist fighters traveled to Afghanistan to oppose the Soviets, who have invaded to prop up the struggling communist Afghan government. Among the Muslim insurgents is Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi businessman. Towards the end of the jihad, or holy war, against the Soviets, he is a key part of the emergence of an organization called Al Qaeda, meaning "the base" or "the foundation." And when the invaders finally withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989, he and the Islamic militants are galvanized by the victory. If they can see off the Soviets, who's to say they can't take on another superpower, an even more formidable enemy?

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Garrett Graff is a historian and author of "The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11."

• 7:15Speaker 03

  I'll kind of get it started with a Saudi construction heir and magnate named Osama bin Laden, who is angry about the US presence in the Middle East and launches a terrorist organization of radical Islamic terrorists that he recruits and deploys in a series of what we now understand to be an escalating series of attacks against the United States in the late 1990s.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  In 1993, Islamic militants based in the US construct a bomb in Jersey City, which they drive by truck into Manhattan and detonate in the underground car park of the World Trade Center. That blast kills six. But although one terrorist had been trained in an Al Qaeda camp, the wider group never officially takes responsibility for the operation.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Instead, Osama bin Laden is focused on US targets in the Middle East and Africa. A massive car bomb in Saudi Arabia in 1995 murders seven, including five Americans. Then, in 1998, Al Qaeda coordinates simultaneous attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, deploying truck bombs that killed 224 people. And in 2000, they attack the USS Cole, a Navy destroyer docked in Yemen.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are not yet the household names they will become, but they are firmly on the radar of US intelligence agencies.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  The FBI had actually Osama bin Laden on its 10 Most Wanted list by the summer of 2001, and there were two teams of agents that were based in New York that had been investigating and chasing the perpetrators of the Kenya and Tanzania bombings and the attack on the USS Cole, and never imagined that the next bin Laden-led Al Qaeda attack would be right down the street from their own office in New York.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Al Qaeda is still a relatively small organization of only a few hundred core members. But it benefits from a protected training ground in Afghanistan and a wider ecosystem of militants and funding from across the region.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Drawn by his mythology as a veteran of the Afghan Soviet War, disenfranchised young men flock to Bin Laden's side to train as jihadists. Many of them already battle hardened after internal conflicts in their homelands. Al Qaeda promotes the narrative that determined militants can defeat even superpowers. Bin Laden argues that local insurgencies are doomed unless they remove the Western powers that support governments. He identifies the United States as the head of the snake.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  The World Trade Center, I think, really represented the center of the capitalist West. Al Qaeda believes, Osama bin Laden believes, that through an escalating series of attacks on the West, and particularly the United States, it can lead to the collapse of the global hegemony of the United States. That it can force the United States into an overreaction that destroys the United States and causes it to withdraw from its place on the world stage, in particular the Middle

• 10:59Speaker 03

  East, and, you know, lose the standing and the power that it had in the 1990s and early 2000s.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  The culmination of these attacks will require ambitious planning.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Years earlier, a militant named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed pitched an idea to Bin Laden for a large-scale airline hijacking of nine aircraft to crash into U.S. landmarks. It was rejected as too complicated, but by 1999, a scaled-down version of the plot is refined and approved.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  As he sets about recruiting his primary operatives, Bin Laden hears about the so-called Hamburg Cell, a group of Islamic terrorists based in Germany. One of their number, the Egyptian Mohammed Atta, came to Europe to study architecture, but was radicalized at a local mosque. Now recruited by Al Qaeda, Atta volunteers to be a hijacker pilot, as do two others from the group selected for the attack. In total, nineteen of them, mostly aged in their twenties, with the slightly older Atta as their leader.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  In January 2000, two of the terrorists enter the U.S. on visitor visas but remain illegally, settling in San Diego, California.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  That summer, Atta and two more plotters arrive, applying through official channels to update their tourist visas to vocational training status. They complete a flight training course in Florida, and over subsequent months, the remaining pilot joins the team, as well as other hijackers who will provide the muscle required to take over an aircraft.

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• 15:32Speaker 02

  A combination of factors leads to the selection of September 11th as the date of the attacks. There is less air traffic in mid-September because it is term time, and Tuesday has the lowest volume of air travel of any weekday. This means planes with fewer passengers, which are easier to control. Then there is the weather, with long-range forecasts showing ideal conditions for visual navigation.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  The date is set. The pilots are trained, and everyone is briefed and ready.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  The day rolls around, and the hijackers make their way to the airports.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Around quarter to eight in the morning, American Airlines Flight 11 pushes back from Stand B32 at Boston's Logan Airport, carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  It is heading to Los Angeles, but running almost 15 minutes late. Passengers fasten their seatbelts, and in first and business class, attendants clear away pre-flight refreshments. Among those at the front of the plane are five Muslim men in Western business attire. Mohammed Atta, the trained pilot, is in seat 8D.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  At 7:59, the plane powers down the runway and takes off.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  After rising over the Atlantic Ocean, it executes a standard banking turn to the west and continues climbing.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Seatbelt signs ping off, the passengers relax, and attendants start to deal with their requests.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  At 8:13, air traffic control advises Flight 11 to make a turn. The pilots acknowledge and adjust their heading.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  The American Airlines plane continues on its original flight path over Massachusetts. But then, at 8:14, air traffic control instructs the flight deck to watch its altitude.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  This gets no response. Investigators believe that by now, the hijacking must have started.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Exactly what occurs onboard Flight 11 is unclear, but evidence suggests that some of the hijackers stormed the cockpit. Another slashes the throat of a man sitting in front of him. This is Daniel Lewin, an Israeli-American former commander, who may have tried to fight the attackers. Two air stewards are also stabbed.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Two further attendants, Madeline Sweeney and Betty Ong, make emergency calls to American Airlines ground staff, reporting a hijacking in progress.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Airline security was just much more lax. They were able to carry box cutter knives onboard the plane. Airline security was really geared before 2001 to stopping bombs from getting on a plane. I mean, the idea that they were really trying to stop was a plot more like the Lockerbie attack on Pan Am 103, where a luggage bomb was smuggled onboard and then exploded when the plane was in the air. And so, security screening would have caught guns or explosives, but wasn't really focused on something like knives at that point.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  The other major vulnerability that Al Qaeda was able to take advantage of was a collective failure of imagination by the United States and air traffic authorities around the world, where planes had not been used as suicide bombs before.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  The FAA, or Federal Aviation Administration, has experience of hijackings. In the past, hijackers have commandeered aircraft to fly out of the country in order to evade justice, or land at a remote airfield and demand a ransom for hostages. The hijackers on board Flight 11 give no indication of the next stage of their plan. And for now, the authorities respond to what appears to be an isolated incident.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  We know that in those first 45 minutes or hour of the hijackings that Tuesday morning, that air traffic control largely believed that they were dealing with a normal hijacking, that they proceeded to scramble fighter planes into the air, but the fighter plane's job was intended to escort the hijacked planes to wherever they were intending to fly. The air traffic controllers at the government response in that first hour really contemplated that these planes would land somewhere, and then the hijackers would make some series of demands once the planes were on the ground.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  At 8:15 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 takes off from Boston Logan Airport, carrying 51 passengers, including the five hijackers plus nine crew members. This aircraft is also heading to Los Angeles and follows much the same route as the earlier Flight 11.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  They carefully researched airline routes. They tried to pick routes that were transcontinental because the planes would have extra fuel onboard and be filled with explosive fuel capability.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Only five minutes later, at 8:20, American Airlines Flight 77 leaves Washington Dulles Airport, also headed across the continent to LA. Onboard are 59 passengers and crew, plus another five hijackers.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Then those muscle hijackers held the flight crew and passengers at bay while the planes were diverted from their intended flight path and targeted both towards Washington and New York. There's some confusion as they're getting multiple reports that they think people are talking about the same plane when they're actually talking about different planes. There's a dawning realization across the 8 a.m. hour as these hijacking reports come in that something has gone terribly wrong in the skies over the United States.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  And the picture is getting more chaotic. At 8:42, following a slight delay, United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from New York's Newark Airport, initially turning its back on the city and heading west. At the same time, the first aircraft, Flight 11, is speeding towards New York. Although the authorities are aware that it has swerved off its original flight path, the terrorists shut down the transmission of altitude data. Air traffic control has only primary radar signals to follow its route. They have no knowledge of its final destination or the fact that it starts descending towards the city. Over the dense radar environment of Manhattan, they struggle to track the aircraft at all.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  But to those down on the ground, there is no doubt that something is horribly wrong. Its engines screaming, the Boeing 767 tracks along the Hudson River at roughly 450 miles per hour, almost twice the maximum legal limit for low altitudes. And it's heading straight for the World Trade Center. At the start of a working day, the building is alive with hundreds of lawyers, traders, bank tellers, government employees, insurance clerks, restaurant staff, as well as security guards, cleaners, and mailroom personnel. As many as 14,000 workers are spread across 110 floors, the footprint of the complex so massive that it has its own zip code.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  At over 400 meters high, the North Tower is the tallest building in New York City and at one time, the world. At 8:46, the unthinkable happens. Flight 11 slams deep into the North Tower between the 91st and 99th floors. Then it explodes.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  The crash has actually instantly cut off all access to the floors above the crash zone. Everyone above the crash zone is doomed at that point, and they don't necessarily realize that. That's partly because in the 1993 attacks, police department, fire department helicopters were able to effect roof rescues from the World Trade Center. And so there was this belief that, you know, some of us will be able to be rescued. Some people attempted to evacuate from those upper floors before realizing that the stairwells were blocked by debris and fire. We have some telephone calls from people in those floors

• 24:30Speaker 03

  out to loved ones, some early email and BlackBerry messages out to loved ones. And then below the crash zone, people begin, for the most part, in orderly evacuation down the stairwells.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Most people inside the building don't realize the enormity of what has happened on the floors above. They feel the impact and hear the explosion, but some believe it was a small plane, a terrible accident, but not a cause for panic.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Even for a lot of the firefighters and police officers who responded to that first attack and that first crash, there was the sense that this was going to be bad, but that ultimately, this was something that was a handleable emergency. And in fact, the Port Authority, which was the government agency that actually owned and operated the World Trade Center complex on that morning, made an announcement in the South Tower that people could remain at their desks. When I was working on my oral history of 9/11, to me, one of the most chilling and captivating quotes I came across was from Peter Johansson, who was the captain of one of the commuter ferries,

• 25:45Speaker 03

  where he was coming in across New York Harbor, and he and all of the passengers aboard the ferry watched that first plane crash into the North Tower. And then he pulled the ferry into Wall Street Terminal right there at the base of the World Trade Center at the tip of Manhattan. And every single passenger got off and walked into Lower Manhattan, even as the debris and the papers from that first crash fluttered down around them.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  For those on the upper floors of the North Tower, there is no escape. Some 1,400 people are working above Level 91, including all the chefs and waiters at the famous "Windows on the World" restaurant. Though hundreds survive the impact, they now start to suffocate in toxic smoke. Extreme heat caused by burning jet fuel creates fireballs. Ceilings collapse and floors sag. Many hang out of windows, desperate for air, or even try to cling to the outside of the building to avoid an inferno of over 1,000 degrees Celsius. Five minutes after the crash, the first person is seen to jump or fall from the North Tower,

• 27:09Speaker 02

  a tiny figure tumbling against the blue sky. In all, some 200 people fall to their deaths. Photographers and TV cameras and news helicopters are filming every moment. The sight of falling bodies creates some of the most harrowing images of the day, broadcast live at the end of the popular morning TV segments. Many channels go live to provide coverage of the breaking news out of New York. So when a second plane comes into view through the smoke, millions are watching live, with anchors discussing the events with eyewitnesses. Rocketing across Manhattan at 500 miles per hour, the plane then crashes into the South Tower

• 27:54Speaker 02

  between Floors 77 and 85 and bursts into flames.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  Did you hear the explosion from your position?

• 28:02Speaker 06

  Yes, we did. As a matter of fact, we heard it and because I was just like standing there pretty much looking out the window, I didn't see what caused it or if there was an impact.

• 28:12Speaker 05

  So you have no idea where the...

• 28:13Speaker 06

  Oh, there's another one. Another plane just hit. Oh my gosh, another plane has just hit another building, flew right into the middle of it. Explosion. That, yes, that was definitely looked like it was on purpose.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  At 9:03 a.m., when United Flight 175 hits the second tower, New Yorkers and the millions watching worldwide understand that this is not simply a terrible accident, but an attack.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  That 17-minute period from 8:46 to 9:03 has always been the most interesting period of 9/11 because you see in it the incredible innocence of the United States. You know, 40% of the United States is too young to remember that attack. A lot of people forget or never knew how open and trusting American society really was before 9/11. Of course, in the 25 years since, we've had not just the fear of terror attacks, but also the now all-too-routine fear of mass shootings. America is a much more tightly-coiled

• 29:31Speaker 03

  and fearful society than it was before 2001. And to me, the moment that happens is not 8:46, it's 9:03.

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• 31:43Speaker 02

  With thousands in the North Tower still making their arduous way down, the fire escapes, those in the South Tower start an evacuation too. Only 18 people escape from the floors above the impact zone via the one stairwell that remains passable.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  But first responders are moving in the opposite direction. With lifts out of action in the towers, firefighters, police, and paramedics climb towards the crash site. Facing smoke and intense heat, they carry fire extinguishers and hoses, axes, and breathing apparatus. They rescue and resuscitate people in stairwells and carry the injured down the steps. Thousands of first responders flood into Manhattan from every district, with more off-duty officers rushing to join the effort. Hospitals go into high alert, awaiting an influx of patients. Now, the FAA stops departures to or through the New York airspace and turns away any aircraft already airborne.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  A thousand miles away, in Florida, US President George W. Bush is reading to schoolchildren at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. He already knew about the first crash, but now White House Chief of Staff Andy Card interrupts to whisper into his ear.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  President Bush, live on camera there, I think actually does a really good job of not panicking. There was a lot of criticism that he faced later for staying and continuing to finish reading with the kids before he got up, but him jumping up in a panic and running out of the room would have actually been even more harmful. They rush him to his motorcade, rush him back to Air Force One, and rush Air Force One up into the sky where they think that they can protect the president that day. Air traffic control really still doesn't quite understand how many hijacked airplanes are still in the air.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  They soon discover there are at least two more. Flight 93 is cruising above Pennsylvania. When hijackers take over the controls, some passengers use in-aircraft telephones to call home. They are informed about the events in New York and the news spreads around the cabin.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  They are violently subdued by the hijackers, armed with box cutter knives, and forced to the back of the aircraft. But many among the passengers feel that if this is a suicide mission, then they have nothing left to lose. They start planning a way to fight back.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  By this time, the other hijacked plane, Flight 77, has fallen into a steep descent towards Arlington, Virginia, home to the Pentagon, the headquarters of US military and defense.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  It is just after 9:30 a.m.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  In Conference Room 2E487 of the Pentagon, 15 men and women are hurrying to take their seats around a wide table.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Someone slams the door. Every cell phone is ringing, and the only topic of conversation is what's just happened at the World Trade Center. One woman, Lieutenant Colonel Marilyn Wills, stands before an electronic display, dressed as usual in her army sweater with epaulettes on the shoulders. She checks her watch, then calls for quiet and starts her presentation. But as she does so, she is suddenly knocked off her feet.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Seconds later, Marilyn comes to, finding herself sprawled on top of the conference table. In the pitch black, she instinctively covers her head as debris falls from above, landing all around her in a blistering deluge. The sudden heat takes her breath away, and in the distance, she can hear the roar of an inferno. Marilyn scrambles off the table. People around her are screaming, coughing through the smoke, trying to get out. Her eyes burning, she can just make out the shape of the door and reaches for it, but as it opens, a blast of smoke and embers hits her.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Feeling a hand on her back, she turns to see Lois Stevens, a civilian colleague who is clearly as blinded by the smoke as she is. Marilyn tells her to stay close, but hesitates in the doorway, unsure whether to turn left or right into the dark corridor.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Left seems somewhat lighter, so she moves that way. The floor is uneven, buckle and broken, and soon they're on their hands and knees, choking now on acrid air, barely able to breathe.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  The sprinkler system activates, and Marilyn tears off her sweater and soaks it in the water. She covers her face and takes a few breaths with the wet fabric filtering the toxic air, then passes it to Lois, who does the same, before sending it down the line of people who have made it out of the conference room.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  With oxygen depleting, Marilyn crawls towards a window up ahead, but it is locked. Someone grabs a nearby printer and attempts to smash the glass,

• 36:59Speaker 02

  but it merely bounces off the strengthened pane. Marilyn stumbles, horrified that she led these people this way only to be trapped.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  But then her colleague, Colonel Philip McNair, climbs onto the window sill. He kicks against the frame until it detaches from the wall, making a space big enough to crawl outside. Up here, on the second floor, it is a 15-foot drop to the ground, but there's no choice. One by one, they jump, with Lieutenant Colonel Marilyn Wills among the last to leave.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Three people in the conference room don't make it. The crash destroys several parts of the building, including the corridor on one side of the meeting room. If Marilyn Wills had turned right, she and her colleagues would also have died.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  In total, 64 people onboard Flight 77 are killed, including the five hijackers, along with 125 on the ground.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  And it's now that there is another major gear shift in the wider response.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  You see the US military beginning to really gear up its response, scrambling more armed and unarmed fighters up into the sky to find and now potentially even shoot down some of these hijacked airliners. And this begins to also really spread panic across the rest of the United States. You had skyscrapers evacuated all across the country, on the West Coast, in Chicago, in Boston, and elsewhere. Disney World shuts down in Florida, the Toronto subway actually is shut down in Canada, and there's a big question looming over all of the country, which is, where's the next site of an attack?

• 38:57Speaker 02

  After the Pentagon crash, the FAA orders every aircraft in US airspace to divert to the nearest airport and land.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  It is the first time in US history such an order has been issued, and the man who makes the call is Ben Slaney, who is on his first day in the job.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Within 20 minutes, the majority of the 4,500 civil aircraft in US airspace are safely on the ground. The order affects international flights too. Aircraft over the Pacific and Atlantic are forced to turn back or divert. Some 37 planes from Europe arrive in Newfoundland, Canada, where a tiny town will play host to 7,000 international passengers until the crisis is over.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  But one hijacked plane is still in the air.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  The passengers of Flight 93 have by now taken a vote and decided to turn the tables on the hijackers by storming the cockpit. Before they do so, the aircraft swerves from its flight path and turns towards Washington. The passengers know what this means. Among them is Todd Beamer, a 32-year-old with a young family and a pregnant wife back home. He manages to phone airline authorities on the ground and say that he and some other willing passengers will try to reach the flight deck.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  At the end of his call, he drops the handset and is heard to say to his fellow passengers, "Are you ready? Let's roll."

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Exactly what happens next is lost to history. At 9:57, the terrorist pilot rolls the plane violently side to side, perhaps in an attempt to knock his assailants off their feet. But the passengers continue to put up a fight.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  And in their final minutes and seconds, as the passengers and crew storm the cockpit, the hijackers nosedive the plane into a field outside a small Pennsylvania town called Shanksville. And this plane crashes in the field, kills everyone aboard. And at 10:03 that morning, the last hijacked plane in the skies over the United States is now crashed.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Now, the nature of the catastrophe changes.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Back in New York, the World Trade Center is still being evacuated, and thousands of workers are streaming onto streets that are choked with response vehicles. Some 35,000 people escaped from the Twin Towers, and neighboring buildings are also empty.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  But then, at 9:59, precisely two hours after the first plane took off, evacuees hear a high-pitched scream of buckling metal and a roar like an avalanche.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  The South Tower collapses. The second to be hit, it is the first to fall, possibly because of the speed and angle at which it was struck, but also because of the intensity of its fires. It concertinas from the top, each floor dropping onto the one below until momentum overtakes it and the structure disappears into wreckage. It takes just 10 seconds to fall.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  A cloud resembling a nuclear blast races through the narrow streets of Lower Manhattan, enveloping first responders and though still leaving the buildings. No one inside the South Tower survives the collapse. Less than half an hour later, the huge antenna on top of the North Tower sinks into the black smoke surrounding the pinnacle, and then the skyscraper follows its fallen twin back towards the ground.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are the most iconic representation of the New York skyline and have been for decades since the 1970s. And now, these television cameras playing live across the country capture a skyline that no one can really even wrap their heads around. The collapse kills hundreds of people who are still in the building as well as hundreds of first responders who had been sent in to rescue the injured and help with the response, including 343 members of the New York Fire Department, 37 members of the Port Authority Police Department,

• 43:28Speaker 03

  and 23 members of the NYPD. And then, you know, they spread this incredibly thick cloud of debris and pulverized concrete all over Lower Manhattan. And hundreds of thousands of people who were in neighboring buildings or had evacuated earlier from the World Trade Center now find themselves really trapped on the tip of Lower Manhattan.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Hundreds of thousands of people streaming from the buildings in Lower Manhattan are now running from what resembles a war zone. But those south of the World Trade Center discover there is nowhere to go. Getting to Upper Manhattan means traversing the choking clouds of concrete dust, broken glass, and other debris. Passable streets soon become bottlenecked with evacuees. The subway is closed, and the bridges and tunnels linking the island of Manhattan to the mainland have already been physically blocked off to most traffic by police in response to the initial plane crashes. Many evacuate on foot over the bridges, but those stuck downtown gather at the water's edge, looking for a way to escape.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  It's 10:45, 20 minutes since the Twin Towers disappeared from the New York skyline.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Docked in the harbor across the water, a captain stands in the wheelhouse of his pleasure boat, watching helplessly, listening to a continuous wail of sirens and horns from the city.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  He usually offers tourists a panoramic view of the famous sights, but now, the financial district is obscured. It looks like a volcano has erupted, nothing but rolling black smoke and pale clouds of dust.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  He watches the orange Staten Island ferry power through the waves and disappear into the pool. But then, his ship radio crackles to life.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  "All available boats," a voice says. "This is the United States Coast Guard."

• 45:33Speaker 02

  They call for anyone who can help with an evacuation to head to Lower Manhattan.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Sparked into action, he doesn't hesitate. After unraveling ropes from the metal cleats and gunning the engine, he sails into the chaos.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  It takes minutes to cross the harbor, but as he approaches Manhattan, it is as if the weather has changed. The air turns dark, smoke hanging over the water like fog. On each side, more and more boats, summoned by the call, stream into view.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  As he closes in, he sees that the piers are overlaiden with people, pale as ghosts or walking statues. It takes his breath away until he realizes they are covered in thick, concrete dust.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  People pour onto waiting ferries that quickly depart, but behind them, the lines are 10-deep. More evacuees stand along the seawalls, desperate to reach fresh air. Reaching a pier, he maneuvers the party boat into the dock beside a tug. The sound of sirens and air horns is deafening, and all around, people are screaming or crying or both. Some have even thrown themselves into the fast-flowing Hudson in a desperate attempt to swim to safety, and smaller vessels are changing course to pluck them out of harm's way.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  A coast guard now approaches, radio in hand. He asks the captain the capacity of his boat, before allowing the correct number of people to file onboard. Two businessmen in torn suit jackets help an elderly man climb up. A woman carries a large, panting dog. A child is passed over people's heads to safety.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  His pleasure boat, which is usually full of partygoers, now resembles a refugee camp. The coast guard slams the gates, and the captain gets behind the controls, firing the engines.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  On the pier, lines refill fast. More ghost-like people pleading for help. "I'll come back," the captain shouts as the pleasure cruiser pushes back from the dock. "I'll come again."

• 47:50Speaker 03

  You know, this incredible response of pleasure yachts and tugboats and fishing vessels and commuter ferries, you know, I still get choked up even just talking about it, begin to rush across New York Harbor. And in the matter of a couple of hours, with no real organization and no real preparation, they effect a maritime evacuation that is larger than Dunkirk, that is actually the largest maritime evacuation in human history. Somewhere on the order of 300,000, 400,000 people are evacuated by boat from Lower Manhattan that morning.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  As the day goes on, there is a further shock when the smaller, and thankfully now empty, Tower 7 of the World Trade Center collapses. And while New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is concerned that other hijacked aircraft might target high-profile sites like the Empire State Building, it does not come to pass. The terror is no longer in the air, but on the ground.

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• 49:51Speaker 02

  With emergency services using the military term "ground zero" to describe the epicenter of the tragedy, the phrase is picked up by news media and becomes synonymous with the site. It will take eight months to clear ground zero of 1.8 million tons of debris and steel. There is also a meticulous forensic search to identify human remains in the rubble in order to name the dead. In total, 2,753 people lose their lives in New York, including nearly 400 first responders. Another 233 people are killed at the Pentagon and Shanksville.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  While the recovery effort begins, the government turns its attention to uncovering those behind the atrocity. In fact, US intelligence agents intercept calls between Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan while the attacks are still underway, which link Osama bin Laden to the events. Using flight manifests and credit card receipts, the FBI identify the hijackers within hours. And at 9:30 PM that evening, President George W. Bush is briefed that Al Qaeda is responsible.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  The next day, he gives a speech calling 9/11 an attack on the heart and soul of the civilized world, and calls on global allies to support a war on terror.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  You see this incredible global support rally to the United States. A lot of people forget or don't know that the one and only time that NATO has ever invoked the so-called Article 5 of its charter, that an attack on one is an attack on all, was to come to the aid of the United States in that wake of 9/11.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  In October 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom begins.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  The US-led military invasion of Afghanistan is intended to topple the local Taliban regime that shields Al Qaeda.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Within months, allied forces drive the Taliban from power and establish an Afghan interim administration. But the senior leadership of Al Qaeda escape into the rugged Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Bin Laden is cornered by US and Afghan troops in December, but manages to slip across the border into Pakistan. He spends the next years living a secretive, nomadic existence between safe houses. In the meantime, in 2003, US and coalition forces also invade Iraq. Although Iraq had no direct involvement in 9/11, the US believes that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be used by terrorists like Al Qaeda.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  The invasion topples the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but no weapons of mass destruction are found. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains at large.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  The fear, the chaos, the confusion and the trauma that 9/11 unleashes on the country unfolds in further crises and catastrophes and disasters around the world. It launches the two forever wars of Afghanistan and Iraq.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Almost 10 years after the events of 9/11, Americans still want justice.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  In Pakistan, US intelligence is paying close attention to a tightly guarded compound in Abbottabad, a town roughly 30 miles north of the capital Islamabad. They have been following a courier who passes messages to Al Qaeda. Agents track the courier to a residence that houses multiple families, but has high walls topped with barbed wire, armed security, and, unusually for 2010, no internet or telephone.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Believing the compound is designed to conceal someone important, operatives using long-lens surveillance spot one individual making frequent walks in an outdoor area that is shielded from view. They call him "The Pacer," but suspect he could be Osama bin Laden.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Though they watch for months, they never positively confirm the man's identity. By early 2011, the mission cannot wait any longer.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  A squad of special operations troops called Navy SEAL Team Six, trained by conducting rehearsals at a replica compound built in the US. In May, they put boots on the ground in Pakistan for Operation Neptune Spear. There are approximately 25 SEALs, along with an interpreter and a combat dog named Cairo. They plan to enter the compound by Black Hawk helicopters.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Back in Washington, the current President Barack Obama is called to the Situation Room. He monitors the operation in real time, along with a group of key political and military advisers. The raid starts badly, with one Black Hawk losing control and crashing inside the compound. But no SEALs are injured, and the hunt is on.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  They move floor by floor through the residence. Individual gunfights break out as the Americans meet resistance. The courier who gave away the location is killed, as is the man later identified as Bin Laden's adult son Khalid. On the third floor, the man known as "The Pacer" is located, and is shot twice after resisting capture. The SEALs destroy the crashed stealth helicopter and depart the compound with the body of the suspect. Photos and DNA tests confirm that the dead man was indeed the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. Several of the survivors who are left in the custody of the Pakistani authorities are confirmed to have been his wives and children.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  In New York and Washington, spontaneous crowds gather to celebrate a bittersweet victory. After 10 years of recovery, the news brings comfort to some of the relatives of the 3,000 people who died. But everyday lives have changed due to events that occurred over a few hours a decade earlier. Around the world, the aviation industry undergoes a revolution to ensure better security on aircraft and in airports. The freedom of travel that people enjoyed before 2001 is a thing of the past, with the introduction of widespread passenger screening, luggage restrictions, and armed air marshals on some flights in the US. All passenger aircraft are fitted with reinforced cockpit doors.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  In the US, counterterrorism measures dominate intelligence and law enforcement budgets. Immigration and surveillance policies are reshaped, and the war on terror drags on to be the longest conflict in US history, costing an estimated $8 trillion.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Today, the main site of the atrocities of 9/11 is one of New York City's key landmarks. A museum in the bedrock beneath what was once the World Trade Center tells the story of what happened that day in September, while the memorial above commemorates those who lost their lives and welcomes several million visitors every year.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Though the towers are long gone, 9/11 continues to cast a long shadow over the American psyche for those who experienced that day or grew up in its aftermath.

• 57:32Speaker 03

  It has fundamentally changed the nature of our democracy. It changed our politics. It changed the way that we board airplanes, the way that you walk into office buildings, the way that you walk into schools. The presidency of Donald Trump in 2026 follows naturally out of the politics that grow out of the ashes of 9/11. You know, the security fears and the nativist fears of immigrants and others that are a natural byproduct in some ways of the way that the country responds to the trauma of 9/11.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Whereas I think the hours and days after the attacks represent the best of America, you know, America at its most caring and resourceful. I don't think the United States has ever recovered from 9/11. I think it fundamentally rewrote the DNA of our country and our society. It turned the United States into a country that is much more fearful. You know, that innocence of 8:46 AM on Tuesday, September 11, is, I think at this point, probably gone forever.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of the Empire State Building.

• 59:15Speaker 05

  We still think of New York as defined by skyscrapers. Big difference is that the skyscrapers going up today are residential. They're not commercial. In some sense, I could feel that I have every right to be in the lobby of the Empire State Building to go up the top. It's a public space. I mean, it's owned by somebody, and I have to pay money to do it, but it's a public space. The tall buildings now are on Billionaires Row. And I promise you, the billionaires don't want me anywhere near their lobby or going up to the top of their building. That, "Thank you, the door is closed." And that is a big change in how the city sort of sees itself. The Empire State Building is still, even without that title, it's not the tallest building in New York, never mind the world, nobody cares. It's still the quintessential landmark of New York.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  That's next time. You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of right now, without waiting and without adverts, by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www-noiser.com/subscriptions to unlock more episodes today.

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