Wednesday, September 12, 2018

The September 11th attacks: Part 2. The World Trade Center and What Supposedly Happened.

It was a beautiful morning on September 11th, 2001 when tragedy struck in New York City.
At 8:14 a.m., Captain John Ogonowski and the other pilot of American Airlines flight 11 stopped responding to requests from the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center.
It is believed that Captain Ogonowski was stabbed to death in order for the hijacker pilot Mohamed Atta to gain control of the plane.
Before dying, Ogonowski keyed the cockpit microphone, pushing its button intermittently to signal that something was wrong and at one point allowing them to hear the voice of the hijacker.
At 8:16 a.m., the aircraft leveled off at 29,000 feet and shortly after deviated from its scheduled path. 
At 8:21 a.m., the flight stopped transmitting its Mode-C transponder signal.
Flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong, contacted American Airlines during the hijacking.
The hijackers had stabbed flight attendants Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui and slashed the throat of passenger Daniel Lewin.
One of the supposedly hijackers, Suqami, may have stabbed and killed Lewin after he attempted to stop the hijacking.
At 8:24 a.m., Atta tried to make an announcement to the passengers. 
Pressing the wrong button Atta sent the following message to Boston ARTCC.
"We have some planes. 
Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K. 
We are returning to the airport.
Nobody move.

Everything will be okay. 
If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. 
just stay quiet."

This is when air traffic controllers at Boston ARTCC realized the flight had been hijacked.
At 8:26 a.m., the plane turned south.
At 08:33:59, Atta announced, 
"Nobody move, please.
We are going back to the airport. 
Don't try to make any stupid moves."
At 08:37, was Flight 175's last transmission.
Air traffic controllers asked the pilots whether they could see American Airlines Flight 11. 
The crew said that Flight 11 was at 29,000 feet, and controllers ordered Flight 175 to turn and avoid the aircraft.
The pilots declared that they had heard a suspicious transmission from Flight 11 upon takeoff. 
"Sounds like someone keyed the mic and said everyone stay in your seats".
Between 08:42 and 08:46, it is believed that "muscle hijackers" Fayez Banihammad and Mohand al-Shehri forcibly entered the cockpit and killed the pilot.
All of this while Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi started moving passengers and crew to the back of the aircraft.

AT 8:43 a.m., Atta completed the final turn towards Manhattan.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines flight 11, is traveling from Boston with 92 souls on board.
“ We are in rapid descent ... we are all over the place.
 Oh, my God, we are too low! ”
Screamed Amy Sweeney, flight attendant aboard Flight 11.
The plane is traveling around 470 miles per hour when it rockets into the North tower of the World Trade Center, setting the tower a blaze.
Most people aren't sure that it is a plane yet.
Some people think a bomb went off inside.
This rendered all stairwells and elevators from the 92nd floor up impassible.
This trapped 1,344 people killing hundreds instantly. 
The rest were trapped and died from the subsequent fire and smoke, the eventual collapse, or after jumping or falling from the building.
Elevator shafts channeled burning jet fuel through the building.
One elevator shaft carried burning fuel downward, exploding on the 77th floor, the 22nd floor, and at street level on the West Side Lobby.

At 8:47 a.m., the Flight 175's transponder signal changed twice within the span of one minute, and the aircraft began deviating from its assigned course.
At 8:51 a.m., the plane changed altitude.
At 8:52 a.m., flight attendant Robert Fangman called a United Airlines office in San Francisco, and spoke with Marc Policastro. Before getting disconnected, Fangman said that the hijackers were likely flying the plane and that both pilots were dead and that a flight attendant was stabbed.
At 08:52 a.m., passenger, Peter Hanson, called his father, telling him of the hijacking. 
Hanson was traveling with his wife, Sue, and a 2½-year-old daughter, Christine. 
The family was originally seated in Row 19, in seats C, D, and E, but Peter placed the call to his father from seat 30E. 
Speaking softly, Hanson said that the hijackers had commandeered the cockpit, that a flight attendant had been stabbed.
He said that possibly someone else in the front of the aircraft had been killed and that the plane was flying erratically. 
Hanson asked his father to contact United Airlines, but his father could not get through and instead called the police.
Around 8:54 am., the flight had a near midair collision with Delta Air Lines Flight 2315, reportedly missing the plane by only 300 feet, as air traffic controller Dave Bottiglia frantically tried to tell the Delta pilot to take evasive action.
This is when he discovered that the plane is hijacked.
It also avoided another near collision with Midwest Express Flight 7.
At 8:58 a.m., Shehri completed the final turn toward New York City, the plane was in a sustained power dive, descending more than 24,000 feet in 5 minutes 4 seconds.
New York Center air traffic controller Dave Bottiglia reported,
"We're counting down the altitudes, and they were descending, right at the end, at 10,000 feet per minute.
That is absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet."
A passenger, Brian David Sweeney, tried calling his wife, at 8:58 a.m., but ended up leaving a message, telling her that the plane had been hijacked. 
At 9:00 a.m. Brian spoke with his mother, and told her about the hijacking.
He mentioned that passengers were considering storming the cockpit and taking control of the aircraft.
Also at 9:00 a.m. Peter Hanson made a second phone call to his father and said,
"It's getting bad, Dad. 
A stewardess was stabbed. 
They seem to have knives and mace. 
They said they have a bomb.
It's getting very bad on the plane. 
The plane is making jerky movements. 
I don't think the pilot is flying the plane. 
I think we are going down. 
I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. 

Don't worry, 

Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast...Oh my God...oh my God, oh my God."
As the call abruptly ended, Hanson's father heard a woman screaming
At 09:01, Flight 175 came in from the southwest, apparently heading for the Empire State Building, but turned right, then left into the South Tower.
At 9:03 a.m. when United Airlines flight 175, with 65 souls on board, is traveling at 590 miles an hour, crashes into the corner of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
It rips a diagonal gash from the from the 84th to the 78th floors.
Around 637 people were killed instantly or trapped at and above the floors of impact in the South Tower.
Part of the plane's landing gear and fuselage came out the north side of the tower and crashed through the roof and two of the floors of 45–47 Park Place, between West Broadway and Church Street.
Three floor beams of the top floor of the building were destroyed, causing major structural damage.
One of the three stairwells was still intact and 18 people passed the impact zone through through it.
Stanley Praimnath, was on the 81st floor, and his office suffered a direct hit. 
He witnessed Flight 175 coming toward him, one of the wings sliced through his office and wound up wedged in a doorway, 20 feet away from him. 
Some people above the impact zone made their way upward toward the roof in hopes of a helicopter rescue. However, access doors to the roof were locked. In any case, thick smoke and intense heat prevented rescue helicopters from landing.
At 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower comes tumbling down sending a dust cloud escaping out for blocks.
At 10:28 a.m., the north tower then collapses.
The long-lasting fire ignited by jet fuel was blamed for the structural failure of the tower.

Along with civilians there are hundreds of firefighters and emergency personnel still trapped in the rubble of the towers, while hundreds more rush to help.
Debris from both towers ignite fires in World Trade Centers 4,5, 6 and 7, which are now a blaze.
The South face of World Trade Center 7 is damage from the debris between Floors 7 and 17 and  between Floor 44 and the roof.
Other structural damage included a large vertical gash near the center between Floors 24 and 41.
The sprinkler system required manual initiation of the electrical fire pumps. 
The floor-level controls had a single connection to the sprinkler water riser and the sprinkler system required some power for the fire pump to deliver water.
Water pressure was low, with little or no water to feed sprinklers.
World Trade Center 7 burns unchecked for 7 hours.
At 5:20 p.m., World Trade Center 7 collapses.
Fires smoldered at the World Trade Center site for three months.

Within days of the attack rescue workers at the World Trade Center site began to discover body fragments from Flight 11 victims.
Bodies were found trapped to airplane seats and discovered the body of a flight attendant with her hands bound.
Within a year, the remains of 33 victims who had been on board Flight 11 had been identified.
In 2006, Flight 11 victims, including purser Karen Martin  were found, while other unrelated body fragments were discovered near Ground Zero around the same time.
In April 2007, a newer DNA technology identified another Flight 11 victim.
The remains of two hijackers, potentially from Flight 11, were also identified and removed from Memorial Park in Manhattan.
The remains of the other hijackers have not been identified and are buried with other unidentified.
Soaked in jet fuel, Suqami's passport survived the crash and landed in the street below,
It was picked up by a passerby who gave it to a New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective shortly before the South Tower collapsed.
In Mohamed Atta's luggage, which had not been loaded onto the flight, they found Omari's passport and driver's license, a videocassette for a Boeing 757 flight simulator, a folding knife, and pepper spray. 
In a recording, a few months later in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden supposedly took responsibility for the attack. 
He had expected only the floors above the plane strikes to collapse.
The flight recorders for Flight 11 and Flight 175 were never found.
On April 26, 2013, a piece of the wing flap mechanism  was discovered wedged between two buildings at Park Place, near where other landing gear parts were found.
Flight 175 landing gear  was found on top of a building on the corner of West Broadway and Park Place, an engine found at Church & Murray Street, and a section of the fuselage landed on top of 5 World Trade Center.
Small fragments were identified from some passengers on Flight 175. 
A six-inch piece of bone belonging to Peter Hanson, and small bone fragments of Lisa Frost.
In 2008, using DNA samples, the remains of Flight 175 passenger Alona Avraham were identified.
Remains of many other victims of Flight 175 were never recovered.

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