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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Early in the morning at 5:45 a.m., Al Qaeda hijackers Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari passed through security at an airport in Portland, Maine on September 11, 2001, a day that changed the country forever.
CTV News reported that at 7:59 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on September 11, 2001, 76 passengers, and 11 crew members, along with five Al Qaeda hijackers took off on American Airlines Flight 11, which was originally scheduled for Boston to Los Angeles. A conference had just opened in the Windows on the World bar at the top of the World Trade Centre. By about 8:14 a.m., the flight was hijacked and routed to Manhattan.
At 8:14 a.m., 51 passengers, nine crew members, and five more hijackers took off on a United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles, which was hijacked and sent to New York at about 8:45 a.m.
At 8:19 a.m. Flight 11 flight attendants alerted ground personnel their flight had been hi-jacked. At 8:20 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 left from Washington, and by 8:42 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 took off from Newark.
Air traffic control notified military air defense command of a hijacking at 8:38 a.m., and told of the second incident at 8:43 a.m.In New York City, at 8:46 a.m., Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, at about 800 kilometres per hour, 100 stories above the street.
Flight 77 turned east at 8:55 a.m.
At 9:03 a.m., Flight 175 struck the South Tower above the 77th floor, at 950 kilometres per hour.
According to news24.com, at a Florida elementary school, President George W. Bush had been alerted, but had begun reading to children. At 09:05 a.m. chief of staff Andrew Card whispered to Bush: "America is under attack". Meanwhile, people were leaping from the upper floors of the World Trade Center.
At 9:30 a.m., according to euronews.net, Bush made the announcement: “Today, two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country.”
Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., and at 9:42 a.m., the FAA grounded flights over or going to the United States.
At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower of the World Trade Center fell. Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa. at 10:03 A.M. The Pentagon E Ring collapsed at 10:15 a.m., and at 10:28 a.m. the North Tower at the Trade Center collapsed
