If you were born in 1995 / 1996, you must remember this day: The world literally stopped, and the television and radio stations were blasting only one news "A terrorist attack changed the world!"
On this day in 2001, al-kaeda members stole four US planes and performed a simultaneous assault with multiple targets in the US, with two aircraft hit the towers of the New York World Trade Center, also known as "Twin Towers".
Terrorists chose large plans that were scheduled to fly to long distance routes, full of fuel, each with about 90.000 liters.
There was at least one kidnapper in each of the planes who had pilot training. The terrorists killed the crew with small scalpers and took over the aircraft. Steering the planes, terrorists in a very short time interval crashed them into their goals:
- American Airlines flight AA11, crashed into the northern tower of The World Trade Center at 08:46:30 local time;
- United Airlines flight UA175, crashed in the South Tower of The World Trade Center at 09:02:59 local time;
- American Airlines flight AA77, crashed at the Pentagon at 09:37:46 local time;
- United Airlines flight UA93, crashed into a field in the state of Pennsylvania, after a fight between the terrorists and the passengers at 10:03:11 local time and probably the terrorists intended to crash it at the US Congress in Washington.
At the collapse, 2.603 people were killed at the World Trade Center. All of the passengers and crew of the four planes were killed, a total of 246. The impact and the fire in the building of Pentagon killed 125 people. Another 24 people are still missing and considered dead. The total number of kills in 2.998, NOT counting the dead of the 19 terrorists.
Most of the victims were citizens of the United States and the remaining are from 79 other countries. The youngest victim was a 2 year-old baby while the oldest one was 82 year-old Robert Norton, who was on another plane with his wife Jacqueline, route to a wedding.
According to a later investigation, around 16.000 people were in the World Trade Center danger zone at the moment of attack. Over 92% of them were evacuated on time.
Since then. the city of New York has repeatedly counted newly infected by cancer and other serious diseases, which is reportedly linked to the toxic cloud which has ben floating over Southern Manhattan for weeks!
- a monument to the victims of the accident built on the site of the Twin Towers -
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