At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 roared south through the sky over Manhattan, traversing the length of the island, surprising city-goers, before it crashed into the North Tower, known as One World Trade Center, at about 465 miles per hour.
William Jimeno, officer, PAPD, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal: A shadow came over 42nd and Eighth Avenue. It completely covered the street for a split second.
Chief Joseph Pfeifer, Battalion 1, FDNY: In Manhattan, you rarely hear planes because of the tall buildings. We all looked up. In almost disbelief, we saw the plane pass, and it was flying so low. Our eyes followed it as it passed behind the buildings, and then it reappeared. It aimed right into the building.
Juana Lomi, paramedic, New York Beekman Downtown Hospital: I was standing outside, and I heard a rumbling sound—it sounded like a truck, but it was too loud.
Cathy Pavelec, administrator, Port Authority, North Tower: I worked in One World Trade Center, on the 67th floor. I had a window office that faced north. I glanced out the window and I saw the plane—it was a little bit over to my right and I noticed that it was very low. I had worked in the World Trade Center since before it had officially opened, and we’d seen a million things over the years. As I watched, the plane got closer and closer and closer. I was in complete disbelief.
Bruno Dellinger, principal, Quint Amasis North America, North Tower, 47th floor: Everybody’s heard plane engines, except very few people have heard the sound of plane engines when they’re at full strength, full force, flying up in the sky. That is a horrifying sound. I still remember it very clearly—the sound of the engines flying at full force toward the World Trade Center.
Cathy Pavelec: I watched the fuselage disappear into the building.
Ian Oldaker, staff, Ellis Island: At 9:00 a.m., every morning, was the first staff boat from Battery Park over to Ellis Island. I stopped at Au Bon Pain and got a croissant. I was continuing down Broadway. Then I heard the largest POP. I turned around, and I saw glass—lots of glass—in the sky. It was really bright out, and it was reflecting off the glass and the sky. Light shimmering everywhere.
NYPD Sgt. Mike McGovern was with Chief of Department Joseph Esposito, just pulling into One Police Plaza, the department headquarters, a few blocks from the World Trade Center.
Sgt. Mike McGovern, aide to the chief, NYPD: We heard a tremendous explosion or bang. We thought it was something above us, because we were directly under the Brooklyn Bridge. We pulled up to the checkpoint at police headquarters and there was a cop manning his post. We find out after the fact this particular cop, Pete Crane, was a pilot. He said into the radio, “Central, be advised that a 767 just struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.” Chief Joe jumped out of the car and he said, “What did you say?”
Joe Esposito, chief of department, NYPD: I said, “How did you know it was a 767?” He said, “I’m a pilot.” I said, “Are you sure?” He said, “I saw—.” I said, “Okay.”
Sgt. Mike McGovern: We turned the car around and went.
Peter Johansen, director of operations, New York Waterways ferries: Honestly, I think most people felt it was a navigation accident. The reason I say that is our ferry continued around to Pier 11, the Wall Street terminal, and there were about a hundred people on board. Every single one of them got off and went to work that morning. As they’re walking off, there are envelopes and letters floating down from the sky.
Brian Conley, resident, Lower Manhattan: It looked like a ticker-tape parade.
Chief Joseph Pfeifer: I told everybody to get in the rigs because we were going down there. I picked up the department radio and told them a plane hit the World Trade Center, and to transmit a second alarm. That was done immediately. That was the first official report.
Jared Kotz, Risk Waters Group: One of my friends came out of an office, yelling, “Which building is the conference in?” I thought, Gee, what are you so excited about? You’ve got plenty of time to get down there. I yelled, “It’s One World Trade Center.” He replied, “No, no! Which building is it? Is it the one with the tower on it?” I walked down to the south side of my office and looked out to verify that indeed it was the Tower with the radio tower. At that moment, I realized something terrible had happened. I saw a large gaping hole and the sky full of what could only be described as confetti—millions of sheets of white paper, floating like confetti in the sky, floating east from the World Trade Center.
Ian Oldaker: I heard the fire engines. I went east to see what was going on back there. It was much more exciting than eating my croissant.
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Flight 11 hit between the 93rd and 99th floors, exploding 10,000 gallons of jet fuel into the offices of the investment firm Fred Alger Management, on the 93rd floor, and Marsh & McLennan, which occupied floors 93 up to 100. At Fred Alger Management, 35 people died; at Marsh & McLennan, 295. The crash immediately destroyed all exits from the floors above, leaving trapped 702 employees and visitors at the bond trader Cantor Fitzgerald on the top floors, from 100 to 105, all of the employees, conference-goers, and diners on the 106th and 107th floors at Windows on the World, as well as one engineer for NBC, William Steckman, working on the 110th floor to operate the broadcast antenna that topped the tower. The crash released a jet-fuel-based fireball that shot down at least one elevator shaft and exploded through the lower floors and the tower’s West Street lobby. Thick, black smoke engulfed the upper floors and light northwest winds carried the smoke over the roof of the South Tower.
Robert Leder, executive, SMW Trading Company, North Tower: Our office was on the 85th floor. I was looking out the window, facing the Empire State Building, when I saw the plane come into the building. There was such a dramatic change of atmospheric pressure. The building swayed from the impact, and it nearly knocked me off my chair. Our ceiling imploded. Some of our walls began to implode.
Richard Eichen, consultant, Pass Consulting Group, North Tower, 90th floor: I’m one of five survivors from the 90th floor of the North Tower. I didn’t have the key to my office, and that’s what saved my life. I was waiting outside, reading the Times—a section on Dell computers, I mean, the random things that you remember—leaning against the wall with my briefcase, my coffee cup on the floor, eating a bagel, waiting for these guys to show up.
All of a sudden, I heard the loudest sound, “Bang,” I’ve ever heard. Hugely, immensely loud. Then all of a sudden I heard, “Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.” Which I now think was the airplane tearing out the girders inside, followed by another “Boom!” Everything exploded in flames. The ladies’ room door actually burst out against its hinges, and out came a fireball—it singed the second wall. That’s how far out it came.
Harry Waizer, tax counsel, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower: I was in the elevator at 8:46 in the North Tower when the first jet hit the Trade Center. My office was on the 104th floor. I had gone up to the Sky Lobby on 78, and I’d made the transition over to the local elevators—I was somewhere between 78 and 104.
Jean Potter, Bank of America, North Tower, 81st floor: I was thrown out of my chair—like thrown. It was this horrible loud explosion, and the building started rocking back and forth, and smoke filled the air immediately. We fortunately were right by a staircase because our floor was fully involved with fire. I heard of maybe four or five survivors from above us.
Vanessa Lawrence, artist, North Tower, 91st floor: I had literally put one foot out of the elevator on the 91st and was thrown to the side. Smoke and debris blasted down the corridor, the building shook.
David Kravette, bond broker, Cantor Fitzgerald, ground-level lobby of the North Tower: All of a sudden jet fuel blasted out of the central elevator bank and mushroomed everywhere. People were—20 yards from me—lifted on this fireball and thrown through those lobby windows and incinerated.
Cathy Pavelec, administrator, Port Authority, North Tower, 67th floor: I ran around the floor yelling, “A plane crashed into the building. We have to get out of here.”
Vanessa Lawrence: I don’t remember hearing anything. My memory is in silence and slow motion, but I know it was all happening very quickly and very loud.
Richard Eichen, consultant, Pass Consulting Group, North Tower, 90th floor: I saw off my left shoulder an Asian man coming toward me—he looked like he had been deep-fried. He had his arms out, and his skin was hanging like seaweed. He was begging me to help him. He said, “Help me, help me,” and then did a face-plant right between my legs. He died between my legs. I looked down, and that’s when I saw my shirt was full of blood. I didn’t know before that I had been hurt.
You could smell fuel. I had no idea what happened. I could see in the elevator shaft—floor-to-ceiling flames. It looked like a shower curtain shimmering. It’s funny the things that you do in the situation—I put my bagel down in the entranceway and said, “I have to remember when it’s over, I have to pick up the bagel and throw it away.”
Robert Leder, executive, SMW Trading Company, North Tower, 85th floor: The first thing that came to my mind was to call my wife. I told her that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. She didn’t believe me. Right after I spoke with her, I opened a door to see what was going on, and this black billowing smoke came straight at us. I shut the door right away. The whole office reeked of jet fuel.
Vanessa Lawrence: When the blast hit, the first thing that came into my head was, Did I leave my tote by an electrical socket? It was that horrible thing, Oh, my God! How am I going to explain this? Even going down the stairs, it was still, Was this me? What if this is my fault?
Anthony R. Whitaker, World Trade Center (WTC) commander, PAPD, North Tower ground-level lobby: I saw two people out of the corner of my left eye. They were on fire. They ran toward me, and then they ran right past me. They issued no sound. All their clothes were burnt off, and they were smoldering.
David Kravette: One of the girls who worked with me, Lauren Manning, was coming into the lobby when that fireball came down, and it took her through the glass. She was burned over 80 percent of her body and survived. If I was 20 yards further along in my walk, I would be dead or severely burned. There was no fire afterwards. It literally exploded out, burned itself out, and disappeared within seconds. It was three, four, five seconds at most.
Harry Waizer: The elevator started to fall. It burst into flames. I had a briefcase, a cloth briefcase, in my hand, and I was using it to try to beat out the flames. I was burned on my legs and on my arms. The elevator initially was plummeting, then an emergency system kicked in, because it started gliding. As it was going, I got hit in the face by a fireball that came in through the gap between the elevator doors and the body of the elevator. I have this impression of this orange ball coming at my face and a sensation—I can’t call it a burning—of it making contact and then it was gone.
David Kravette: It’s a comedy of errors that I’m alive. Everyone else in my office upstairs that day perished. They were all trapped. There was no way out.
Meanwhile, hundreds of feet below the impact zone, people were still going about their day. The World Trade Center complex was so massive that those in the underground shopping concourses didn’t feel the plane hit and did not realize something terrible had transpired until they saw others fleeing.
Alan Reiss, director of the World Trade Center, Port Authority: We went down to have coffee and a bagel at Fine and Shapiro, a deli-restaurant right near where the A train and E train entrance was. I was sitting with my back to the Concourse when my colleague Vicki [Cross Kelly] said, “Something must have happened. People are running like crazy on the Concourse—they’re panicked.” I figured that there was probably someone with a gun or some holdup. I hadn’t heard anything, didn’t feel anything, smell anything.
Michael Lomonaco, executive chef, Windows on the World, inside the underground shopping complex underneath the Towers: They took me into the examining room at LensCrafters and did the examination. The doctor examined my old glasses. The optometrist left me in the examining room, closed the door. He came back in—burst through the door, really. He looked pale. He said, “Something happened. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Across the 16 acres of the World Trade Center site, neighbors in the South Tower, Two World Trade Center, watched the disaster unfolding in the North Tower. For some occupants of the Towers, the 2001 attack was the second terrorist attack on the complex they had experienced; in 1993, a small group of Islamic extremists had exploded a car bomb in the parking garage beneath the North Tower, hoping it would topple the building. The explosion killed six and injured around 1,000 and provoked numerous security and fire safety improvements in the complex—some of which saved lives on 9/11.
In the initial aftermath of the collision, many occupants reasoned that the incident would be similar to the ’93 bombing; there wasn’t necessarily mass panic or initial concern—even from some above the impact zone, who figured they could evacuate from the roof or just wait for firefighters to extinguish the fire below. Occupants in the South Tower were quickly reassured by an official building-wide announcement over the P.A. system that their building was not affected and were told to remain at their desks. Similarly, guests in the Marriott Hotel between the two towers realized something had happened but continued to go about their day.
Robert Small, office manager, Morgan Stanley, South Tower, 72nd floor: The explosion on 9/11 felt very similar to the explosion in ’93. I said to myself, Jeez, not again.
Elia Zedeño, financial analyst, Port Authority, North Tower, 73rd floor: The building shook. I thought, This is it—I am going down, and immediately I thought, Earthquake. But, instantaneously, it was, Earthquake. 1993. There was no pause, thinking, What could it be? Nothing like that. It was, Earthquake. No, 1993. I immediately thought, In 1993 I didn’t have my keys to get home. Today I am going to have my keys.
Herb Ouida, World Trade Centers Association, North Tower, 77th floor, and father of Todd Ouida, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower, 105th floor: When the building shook I knew immediately from the 1993 bombing experience to leave. No one could have dissuaded me. I knew, though, my son Todd was on the 105th floor.
Harry Waizer, tax counsel, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower, 78th floor sky lobby: I was in shock. I got off the elevator. I was remarkably calm. I had my bag still with me. I walked over between two of the larger elevator banks, put it down, and said, “I can’t carry this right now,” and “I’ll get it back later.”
Michele Cartier, Lehman Brothers, North Tower: I was working on the 40th floor for Lehman Brothers. Everybody started clearing the floor, and we began our descent. Nobody knew exactly what was going on. There was no indication that this was a terrorist attack. We pretty much thought you’d go back outside, you’d come out, you’d come back upstairs, and you would go back about your business.
Jared Kotz, Risk Waters Group: One of my colleagues, Samara Zwanger, had the phone number for David Rivers, one of our editors, who was in the conference at Windows on the World. He told her that nobody knew what had happened. There had been a huge explosion, all the windows had fallen out, all the ceilings had come down, and everyone had been knocked to the ground, but everyone was okay, and everyone was going to be evacuated.
Constance Labetti, accountant, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 99th floor: Our boss, Ron Fazio, knew he had to get us out of there. He said, “Go to the staircase.” I returned to my desk to grab my sneakers because I had 99 flights to descend. I started to climb down on the steps. I still had my heels on, and my sneakers in my hand. I remember hearing the PA announcement come on—the PA announcement said, “Do not evacuate. Stay where you are. We have no structural damage. There’s structural damage to Tower One, which we’re evacuating, but Tower Two go back to your workstations.” I caught up to a couple in the staircase—maybe the 90th floor, 92nd floor. I said to them, “Could you wait a moment while I put my sneakers on?” They said, “Of course, we’ll wait.” I was trembling so much that I couldn’t tie my sneakers. I remember the man saying to me, “Just tie your sneakers. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.” I tied my sneakers, then we continued on down.
Judith Wein, senior vice president, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 103rd floor: It was a wide staircase, and we were going down two abreast. There was a little space in the middle. Every once in a while I saw somebody go up—come up. They would mumble, “Oh, I left such-and-such on my desk.” I’m always wondering in retrospect: Did they ever come back down?
Robert Small, office manager, Morgan Stanley, South Tower, 72nd floor: People on my floor started to leave. A friend of mine and I started to watch it on television in one of the boardrooms. We walked north, looking out the windows, and you could see the smoke, you could see the flame. We started trying to guess what was falling. Was it a book? Was it a piece of paper? Was it a drape? Was it a chair? After a few minutes, we saw people jumping, falling, landing. That wasn’t good. After a few of those, we decided not to watch. Let’s go back, call our families, let them know we’re okay—still thinking everything was in the North Tower. Nothing was going to happen at the South Tower.
Michael Lomonaco, executive chef, Windows on the World, in the shopping complex under the Towers: I got out into the corridor. There was an official from the Port Authority motioning with the arms. He was telling people, “Run! Get out!” I exited out onto Liberty Street, crossed over to Church Street. I turned and looked back to see what had happened. I could see the horrific fire in Tower One. I thought maybe there had been an explosion.
Frank Razzano, guest, Marriott Hotel: I remember hearing a big bang. I got up out of bed. I opened the drapes on the windows on the Liberty Street side of the building. I saw papers fluttering down to the ground. I said to myself, Well, must’ve been a big wind that must’ve blown off the harbor and blew a pane of glass out in one of the buildings. I turned around, closed the drapes, and got back in bed.
Michael Lomonaco: I thought, Oh my god—everybody at work. I thought, What’s happening on 106? Then the next thought was, Okay, I’m going to stay calm. They’ll go down the fire stairways. I had complete optimism that people were coming down.
News of the crash reverberated across the city as New Yorkers struggled to understand what had happened. The attack interrupted primary day across New York City, as voters planned to choose a successor to Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The confusion was especially pronounced in Lower Manhattan, one of the most densely packed areas of the United States, as the crash was felt or witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people in nearby apartment buildings, offices, hospitals, transit terminals, schools, and across the financial district surrounding Wall Street, just blocks away.
One of the schools closest to the World Trade Center—just three blocks south of the complex—was the High School for Leadership and Public Service (HSLPS), one of New York City’s small specialty schools, home to about 600 students and 40 faculty.
Ada Dolch, principal, HSLPS: At about 8:45, the lights in the lobby went out. Within 10 seconds, the lights went right back on, and immediately after that there was this very loud bang, this very loud explosion.
Heather Ordover, English teacher, HSLPS: We all heard the scream of the engines, like a bomb in a war movie—then the flash. The kids ran to my back window. I ran to my back window. We saw burning paper, smoke, falling debris. I ran back to the front of the room, yelling to the kids to sit down and write about what they’d just seen—anything to get them away from the windows.
Keturah Bostick, student, HSLPS: One of the teachers, Mr. Donnelley, ran into our classroom, saying, “Did you see that?” Everyone screamed, “What?” He responded, “The airplane went right into the tower, and we saw everything.” A few seconds later, Mr. Bronsnick came on the loudspeaker and said that the crash was being controlled by the firemen and didn’t affect us and that it would still be a full day of school.
Razvan Hotaranu, student, HSLPS: There were papers everywhere, like the Yankees parade, and a lot of ash.
Ada Dolch: Through the radio we could hear that something was going on at the World Trade Center. I knew that that’s where [my sister] Wendy worked [for Cantor Fitzgerald]. The words out of my mouth were very clear: “God, please take care of Wendy. I have to take care of the kids in the school.”
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