Have you forgotten?

World Trade Center

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 8:45am New York local time, One World Trade Center, the North tower, was hit by a hijacked 767 commercial jet airplane, loaded with fuel for a trans-continental flight. Two World Trade Center, the South tower, was hit by a similar hijacked jet 18 minutes later at 9:03am. In separate but related attacks, the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C. was hit by a hijacked 757 at 9:43am, and at 10:10am, a fourth hijacked jetliner crashed in Pennsylvania. The South tower (WTC 2), which had been hit second, was the first to suffer a complete structural collapse at 10:05am, 62 minutes after being hit itself, 80 minutes after the first impact. The North tower (WTC 1), then also collapsed at 10:29am, 104 minutes after being hit. WTC 7, a substantial 47 story office building in its own right, built in 1987, was damaged by the collapsing towers, caught fire, and later in the afternoon also totally collapsed.

The list of collapsed buildings (as confirmed by the New York Times through Saturday, 2001.0915) included all seven buildings of the World Trade center complex — including WTC 6, the U.S Customs House to the North; WTC 3, the 22 story Marriot World Trade Center hotel just West of Tower Two; and WTC 4 and 5, the Plaza Buildings to the East (although satellite images suggest much of WTC 5, the North Plaza Building, was still standing). Other nearby buildings were significantly damaged, including the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, and One Liberty Plaza, a 54 floor, 743' tall building across Church Street to the East.

About 2800 people died in the World Trade Center attack. The recovery and site clearing process officially concluded on May 30, 2002 with 1796 people still remaining unrecovered. 1.8 million tons of debris was removed from the World Trade Center disaster site.

Pentagon

Within 30 minutes of two planes hitting the World Trade Center twin towers, American Airlines Flight 77 departed Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles. The Boeing 757 was hijacked and crashed, loaded with 10,000 gallons of fuel, at 345 mph into the west side of the Pentagon. The five-story Pentagon is made up of five pentagonal structures arranged in concentric rings. These rings surround a five-acre open courtyard and are connected by 10 spike-like corridors. The plane took out light poles in the parking lot, hit the ground just outside the outermost ring of the Pentagon, turned up on its wing, and penetrated the E ring (outermost) midway between corridors 4 and 5. It then traveled through the D ring and into the C ring. All 58 passengers, four flight attendants, and both pilots onboard, as well as 125 occupants of the Pentagon, died.

Sommerset, Pennsylvania

At approximately 9:35am United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked somewhere near Cleveland, Ohio while cruising at 35,000 feet. The aircraft's course was presumably changed to proceed to Washington, D.C. Investigators believe that the aircraft had a target of either the White House or the Capitol Building. It never made it that far.

During the initial takeover, two Flight Attendants were reportedly killed near the front of the aircraft, while the remaining persons aboard the plane were herded toward the rear portion of the passenger cabin. Throughout the ordeal, these passengers and crewmembers were permitted to use cellular phones as well as the onboard AirFone system to contact loved ones. As word spread of the three other hijackings, and their end result, a group of passengers aboard the flight began to develop a plan to regain control of the aircraft from the four hijackers. A GTE AirFone operator, speaking with one of the passengers on board, reported that the passenger had told her that the passengers had voted on whether to obey the hijackers, or challenge them, and that the vote had been to attempt to regain control of the plane. The AirFone operator then heard one of the passengers say "Let's roll," and the phone dropped to the floor. Staying on the line, she would later recall hearing sounds of loud comotion, yells and screams for the next several minutes, followed by the line going dead.

United Flight 93 had crashed into a field in south-western Pennsylvania. On board the aircraft were 33 passengers, five flight attendants, and the two pilots.

Have you forgotten?  I sure haven't.  I intend to PROTECT my family and friends from these FREAKS!!