American Airlines Flight 11 in the context of "Collapse of the World Trade Center"

The September 11 attacks, colloquially known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, then flew one into each of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City, and another into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt. In response to the attacks, the United States waged the global war on terror over decades, to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, and the governments purported to support them.

Ringleader Mohamed Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower. Both collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes, destroying the remaining five structures in the complex. American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, was believed by investigators to target either the United States Capitol or the White House. Alerted to the previous attacks, the passengers revolted against the hijackers who crashed the aircraft into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered an indefinite ground stop for all air traffic in U.S. airspace, preventing any further aircraft departures until September 13 and requiring all airborne aircraft to return to their point of origin or divert to Canada. The actions undertaken in Canada to support incoming aircraft and their occupants were collectively titled Operation Yellow Ribbon.

The September 11 attacks of 2001, in addition to being a unique act of terrorism, constituted a media event on a scale not seen since the advent of civilian global satellite links. Instant worldwide reaction and debate were made possible by round-the-clock television news organizations and by the internet. As a result, most of the events were known by a large portion of the world's population as they occurred.

The attacks themselves lasted less than two hours; the first hijacking commenced at approximately 8:14 am, and the final hijacked plane crashed at 10:03 am. All times given are in Eastern Daylight Time, (UTC−04:00).

The September 11 attacks, colloquially and perhaps more commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, then flew one into each of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City, and another into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt. In response to the attacks, the United States launched and waged the global war on terror over two decades, with the mission to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, and the governments purported to support them.

Ringleader and hijacker Mohamed Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later at 9:03 a.m., hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi flew United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower. Both collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes, destroying the remaining five structures in the complex. Hijacker Hani Hanjour flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, flown by hijacker Ziad Jarrah, was believed by investigators to target either the United States Capitol or the White House. Alerted to the previous attacks, the passengers revolted against the hijackers who crashed the aircraft into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered an indefinite ground stop for all air traffic in U.S. airspace, preventing any further aircraft departures until September 13 and requiring all airborne aircraft to return to their point of origin or divert to Canada. The actions undertaken in Canada to support incoming aircraft and their occupants were collectively titled Operation Yellow Ribbon.

United Airlines Flight 175 was an American domestic passenger flight from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport in California that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-200 carrying 51 passengers and 9 crew members (excluding the 5 hijackers), was deliberately crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone aboard and causing the deaths of more than 600 people in the South Tower's upper levels in addition to an unknown number of civilians and emergency personnel on floors beneath the impact zone. Flight 175 is the second-deadliest plane crash in aviation history, surpassed only by American Airlines Flight 11.

Flight 175 departed from Logan Airport at 08:14. Twenty-eight minutes into the flight, the hijackers injured several crew members, forced their way into the cockpit, and murdered both pilots while moving anyone who remained to the rear of the aircraft. Lead hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi, who had trained as a pilot for the purposes of the attacks, was able to usurp the flight controls once the hijackers killed the captain and first officer. Unlike the team on American Airlines Flight 11, the terrorists aboard Flight 175 did not switch off the plane's transponder when they took over the cockpit. Thus, the aircraft was visible on New York Center's radar, which depicted the deviation from its assigned flight path before controllers took notice four minutes later at 08:51 EDT. Upon realizing, the ATC workers immediately made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the cockpit of the hijacked airliner, which twice nearly collided with other planes as it recklessly flew toward New York City. In the interim, three people were able to get through to their family members and colleagues on the ground, passing on information to do with the hijackers as well as casualties suffered by the flight crew.

Mohamed Atta (1 September 1968 – 11 September 2001) was an Egyptian engineer and terrorist hijacker for al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he was the ringleader of the September 11 attacks and served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which he flew into the North Tower of the original World Trade Center as part of coordinated suicide attacks. Aged 33, he was the oldest of the 19 hijackers who took part in the mission. Before the attacks, he worked as a civil engineer.

Born and raised in Egypt, Atta studied architecture at Cairo University, graduating in 1990, and pursued postgraduate studies in Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology. In Hamburg, Atta became involved with the al-Quds Mosque where he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, together forming the Hamburg cell. Atta disappeared from Germany for periods of time, embarking on the hajj in 1995 but also meeting Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. Atta and the other Hamburg cell members were recruited by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a "planes operation" in the United States.

The September 11 attacks, colloquially known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, then flew one into each of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City, and another into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt. In response to the attacks, the United States launched and waged the global war on terror over two decades, with the mission to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, and the governments purported to support them.

Ringleader and hijacker Mohamed Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later at 9:03 a.m., hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi flew United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower. Both collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes, destroying the remaining five structures in the complex. Hijacker Hani Hanjour flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, flown by hijacker Ziad Jarrah, was believed by investigators to target either the United States Capitol or the White House. Alerted to the previous attacks, the passengers revolted against the hijackers who crashed the aircraft into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered an indefinite ground stop for all air traffic in U.S. airspace, preventing any further aircraft departures until September 13 and requiring all airborne aircraft to return to their point of origin or divert to Canada. The actions undertaken in Canada to support incoming aircraft and their occupants were collectively titled Operation Yellow Ribbon.

The Hamburg cell (German: Hamburger Zelle; Arabic: خلية هامبورغ, Khalia Hamburh) were a clandestine cell system of eleven Islamist terrorists living in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1990s. In 1999, they traveled to Afghanistan to meet with leaders of the militant organization al-Qaeda, and then returned to Hamburg to work on al-Qaeda's plan for terrorist attacks against the United States. This led to the September 11 attacks in 2001, in which four American airliners were hijacked in an attempt to crash them into important landmarks in the country.

Germany, the U.S., and the United Nations collectively consider eleven people to have been members. Three of them—Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah—were hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and United Airlines Flight 93, respectively. In 2002, Ramzi bin al-Shibh stated that only he and those three men were members. However, authorities also list: Abdelghani Mzoudi, Mamoun Darkazanli, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, Naamen Meziche, Said Bahaji, and Zakariya Essabar.

The September 11 attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history, causing the deaths of 2,996 people, including 19 hijackers who committed murder–suicide and 2,977 victims. Thousands more were injured, and long-term health effects have arisen as a consequence of the attacks. New York City took the brunt of the death toll when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan were attacked, with an estimated 1,700 victims from the North Tower and around a thousand from the South Tower. 200 mi (320 km) southwest in Arlington County, Virginia, another 125 were killed in the Pentagon. The remaining 265 fatalities included the 92 passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11, the 65 aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the 64 aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and the 44 aboard United Airlines Flight 93. The attack on the World Trade Center's North Tower alone made the September 11 attacks the deadliest act of terrorism in human history.

Most of those who perished were civilians, except for: 344 members of the New York City Fire Department and New York Fire Patrol; 71 law enforcement officers who died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City; 55 military personnel who died at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia; a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who died when Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania; and the 19 terrorists who died on board the four aircraft. At least 102 countries lost citizens in the attacks.